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HISTORY 
OF THE 



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WAR 



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Important 
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HISTORY OF 

The World War 
















With Chronology of 
Important Events 

BY 

THOMAS R. BEST 

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A CLEAR, CONCISE ACCOUNT OF 
THE GREATEST OF ALL WARS, 
FROM AN AMERICAN VIEWPOINT 






STREET & SMITH CORPORATION 

Publishers :: 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York 





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Copyright, 1919 
By STREET & SMITH 

History of The World War 



<g,CI.A516987 



All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign 
languages, including the Scandinavian. 



CONTENTS. 



The Peace Before War 7 

Germany's Dream of Empire 14 

The German Rush Into France 22 

The Marne, the Aisne, and Ypres 27 

The Russian Campaign 35 

Military and Naval Stations During the First Winter.. 42 

The West Front in 1915 50 

Russian Defeat t 58 

Turkey; the Dardanelles; Italy; the Balkans, in 1915.. 65 

The End of a Victorious German Year 76 

Verdun 84 

The Battles on the Somme 93 

The War on Other Fronts in 1916 102 

Another Winter of Deadlock 114 

The Submarine Campaign of 1917 127 

America Enters the War 138 

Vast Preparations 150 

America in France and on the Sea 162 

The West Front in 1917 174 

Italian Disaster and British Triumph 186 

Russian Downfall 196 

The German Offensive 204 

Emergency Measures — American Crusaders 219 

The Allied Line Holds.... 230 

The Allied Counter Offensive 242 

The Redemption of France 254 

American Fighting Men 265 

Germany's Empire Destroyed— Her Allies Surrender.. 279 

Final Victory 292 

France's Tribute to First United States Soldiers Who 

Fell in France 304 

Chronology of the War 306 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR 



CHAPTER I. 

THE PEACE BEFORE WAR. 

When, to the world peoples, the news was flashed 
of the Austrian tragedy of June 28, 1914, there came 
no warning that it was of dread import. The nations 
journeyed almost to the brink of war in ignorance of 
its nearness. In America especially, if, a week later, 
one thought of the fateful assassination at all, it was 
only as the latest of a long series of such happenings 
in an unhappy empire. In Europe, men made their 
usual commercial, political, personal plans for August 
sand September, with no intimation that these plans 
would never be realized. Each nation had its prob- 
lems at home and its differences abroad, but the settle- 
ment of these problems did not call for the slaughter, 
of the youth of the land. Europe was armed, but 
Europe had always been armed ; there had been threats 
of war, just as there had always been threats, or worse. 
But in the last generation a strong sentiment for peace 
had spread. The more democratic nations had come 
to think of war between the great powers as a thing of 
the past. So it was that when every newspaper in the 
world carried the black news that the long threatened 
European war had begun and that nation after na- 
tion was being hurled headlong into the conflict, the 
wide world gasped in utter surprise at the bare fact 
of it. The immensity of it dazed the nations; the 
wantonness of it angered them. A great outcry arose 
against war and against autocratic power that could, 
without warning, convulse civilization. 



8 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

A sword had hung* over Europe for years before 
this, but it had dropped without causing a general con- 
flict. It was not noticed that the sword had been 
hung up again. This sword was the Balkan question. 
For a generation it had been an axiom that the Bal- 
kan states would one day be the cause of a general 
European war. The date of this war had been fore- 
cast many times but each year saw the war clouds 
dissipate. To the world the Balkan states meant, 
not races of people, not personalities, but a problem 
that endangered the peace of western civilization. 
Their national aspirations were unheeded or used but 
as pawns of empire. Oppressed by Turkey, they were 
suppressed by European diplomats in the interests of 
their own safety. 

With the aid of Russia, parts of the Serbian, Bul- 
garian, and Roumanian peoples had won their free- 
dom in 1878 and later. The redeemed sections heard 
constantly the cries of their blood brothers under the 
Turkish yoke. There could be no assured peace until 
Turkey was driven from her victims. Sporadic up- 
risings occurred yearly. The only powers that could 
cope with the Sultan would not move. European 
jealousy over the disposal of Constantinople, strate- 
gically so precious, prevented an earlier solution of 
the Balkan question. None of the five great nations 
(Would permit any of the others to control Constanti- 
nople. 

The Balkan peoples grew desperate as years passed, 
and at last, in 1912, Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria put 
aside their local jealousies and allied themselves to 
fight their ancient enemy. To the surprise of the 
world, they easily defeated Turkey and drove her 
from the strip of Europe, reaching across the Bal- 
kans to the Adriatic Sea^ that for centuries she had 
possessed and misruled. "The Turk was confined to 
Constantinople and to a very small strip of Europe 
besides. A few months after this war, so completely 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. Q 

successful, the conflict broke out again. The Bal- 
kan partners could not agree on the spoils, thanks to 
the interference of Austria-Hungary. Bulgaria sud- 
denly attacked her two allies and was quickly and 
soundly beaten. 

To the chancellors of Europe, the great fact was 
that the Balkan explosion, so long dreaded, had taken 
place without involving the great powers. The per- 
plexing question seemed to be on the way to a solu- 
tion, complete and permanent; the menace seemed to 
be removed. The opposite was true, could the world 
but have known. The Balkan wars made the Great 
War only more certain, served only to fix a time for 
it. Serbia's success blocked the plans of Germany. 

But the world did not know and it breathed easier. 
There was activity in all the arts of peace. There 
was social progress, vast commerce, that war would 
imperil if not destroy. The backward nations were 
stirring from the sleep of centuries and were form- 
ing commercial, political, and spiritual connection with 
modern civilization. After long years of poverty, 
Spain, Italy, and Greece were finding new prosperity. 
Norway, Sweden, and Holland, long prosperous, were 
still more so. Belgium was teeming with activity. 
Her looms, for centuries the source of Europe's finery, 
were busier than ever. Russia was recovering from 
her defeat of ten years previous and was putting her 
industries and transportation on a modern business 
basis. 

Each year saw France gain new prosperity. Crip- 
pled at the close of the Franco-Prussian War, she 
had become again a great industrial nation, drawing 
profits from her many well managed colonies and 
from all the world besides. France was importing 
one and one-half billion dollars worth of merchandise, 
and her exports were nearly as great. Germany and 
England each sold her an equal amount. England was 
her best customer. Merchandise alone did not meas- 



10 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

nre the standing of France. Besides being an intel- 
lectual center, she was a great capitalist nation; the 
railways, mines, factories of Europe, Asia, Africa, 
and the two Americas owed their financing to French 
money. 

Her alliance with Russia had served her well during 
the years of military and political weakness. It had 
served to hold off Germany. In 1898 England and 
France almost went to war over rival claims in Africa. 
But, as if she heard the triumphant laugh of Germany 
at seeing her chief rivals destroy each other, France, 
at the critical moment, drew back. France and Eng- 
land both saw the light and a few years later formed 
an "entente cordiale." This informal alliance carried 
France through several crises with Germany at a time 
when Russia was weak. But with all her military 
strength, with all her alliances, France did not want 
war. She could not hope to cope with Germany 
except at a terrible cost; she had too much to lose, 
too little to gain. 

England, for centuries engaged in every European 
quarrel, was more and more disinclined to risk a war, 
much less provoke one. A large portion of the 
world's richest lands were within her realms. The 
strategic points of the sea lanes of the world were 
England's. With all her empire, Britain was not in 
an imperial mood during these later years. Her 
bonds with Canada and Australia were wholly subject 
to the will of the latter, and Britain was content to 
have it so. There were strong anti-imperialistic par- 
ties in England and they were necessarily pacifist. 
Public sentiment in England would not have sup- 
ported an aggressive war. 

England's commerce was world wide. Half of the 
world's ocean merchandise was carried in English 
ships. Her own manufactures were of immense 
proportions. She supplied the material for the build- 
ing of bridges in Siberia and Rhodesia; the mining 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. II 

machinery that extracted the wealth of the Andes was 
made in England and manned by English engineers. 
The steamboats that sailed the inland waters of China 
and Africa were built in the firths of Scotland. Be- 
sides carrying most of the three and one-half billion 
dollars worth of goods exported each year from 
her mills and shops, Britain's ships carried much of 
the commerce of other nations. American harvests 
were sent to Argentine. Texas cotton to Manchester 
looms, American meat to Sweden, Chilean nitrate to 
Germany, African rubber to Ohio factories, in Eng- 
lish ships. Because of this immense trade, the people 
of Great Britain were able to buy four billion dollars 
worth of goods from other countries. England's 
welfare called for continuance of peace. 

America, never an active force in European politics, 
was an interested observer of the accumulation of 
armaments and of the alignments of the nations. 
Until the last two decades, concerned almost wholly 
with her own internal affairs, America, at the begin- 
ing of the twentieth century, had new outside inter- 
ests. Her protectorship of the Western Hemisphere 
brought her into vital contact with the commercial 
nations. Her foreign commerce had begun to mount 
during this period until it promised to rival that of 
England at no far distant date. Europe bought much 
of its food from America. The manufacturing na- 
tions drew from her raw materials to the value of 
hundreds of millions. 

American influence was all for peace. The thought 
of world-embracing war was abhorrent to statesmen 
and people alike. American public opinion did not 
hold a world war probable, hardly possible. It was 
thought that the larger nations had become too humani- 
tarian to fight for dynasties and empire, too intelligent 
to imperil industrial vitality. There was no war 
party, in power or out of it ; no wish to fight nor any 
reason for fighting any of the great world powers. 



12 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

Germany, in 191 4, occupied a favorable place among 
the great nations. Her commerce was increasing 
twice as fast as that of England. While not yet 
equal to that of the latter, it still made an impressive 
total. The foreign commerce alone amounted to the 
enormous sum of two billion dollars and more in 
exports, and nearly as much in imports. Of these 
totals, eight hundred million dollars worth was carried, 
to and from overseas ports. Not a nation but felt the 
influence of German science, of German philosophy; 
not a region but used goods "made in Germany." The 
children of Russia, Spain, Argentine, of Maine and 
California, all played with German toys. She supplied 
more iron and steel than England. In certain chemi- 
cals her trade was practically a monopoly. 

German ships sailed every sea. She vied with Eng- 
land for the carrying trade of the world. More 
American goods were carried in German vessels than 
by ships flying the Stars and Stripes. In the Far East 
alone one of the great German lines had forty ships 
serving China and the East Indies. More than two 
thousand steamships flew the German flag. England 
alone had greater tonnage, twenty million tons of 
merchant marine to Germany's five millions. Ger- 
many meant to lessen the discrepancy. 

In all the world Germany had nothing to be afraid 
of. She was too powerful to fear attack. There 
was no combination of nations that dared to make an 
unprovoked assault upon her. Her ships sailed the 
seven seas, entered the ports of the British Empire 
on equal terms with England's ships. Germany sold 
to one small English colony, Ceylon, more than a 
million dollars worth of goods yearly, and the trade 
with Canada and Australia was immensely greater. 
England herself was Germany's best customer. But 
Germany was not satisfied. 

Because of the German nation's political and com- 
mercial ambition, millions of men were to spring to 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 13 

arms; Germans were to leave their factories, don a 
uniform and march against their neighbors; French- 
men were to bid a sudden farewell — many until eter- 
nity — to their families; Russians were to leave their 
farms; men in Canada and Australia were to be 
aroused from their quiet homes to fight for the right 
in f ar-off lands ; Italians, Serbs, Turks were to enter 
the war; Africans, Asiatics, men from every continent 
were to take part in the conflict. Because, in order 
to realize their projects, the German people had given 
autocratic power to their rulers. Destruction was to 
come to magnificent cathedrals, objects of pride for 
centuries; the splendid cities of France and Belgium 
were to be laid in ruins more desolate than if an 
earthquake or a fire had ravaged them; the wreckage 
of ships of all nations was to litter the ocean bed — - 
the great Liisitania was to be sunk ; kings and thrones 
were to tumble as so much rubbish, and mighty em- 
pires were to become the playthings of fanatics. Be- 
cause Germany aspired to lordship over other races, 
the schoolboys of 19 14 were to become the soldiers 
of 19 18 and were to meet death before they grew to 
manhood; the kind hearts of cheery peasants were to 
be filled with undying bitterness, the consuming fires 
of hatred were to sweep over nations; Germans were 
to forget mercy and justice arid honor; children in 
England were to be killed, women in Belgium were 
to be outraged; assassins were to destroy half the 
Armenian people, thousands of their 'women and chil- 
dren were to die of thirst on the deserts of Mesopo- 
tamia or from torture at the hands of the Turks; the 
jungles of Africa, the steppes of Russia, the moun- 
tains of Italy, the plains of Flanders, were to be 
sprayed with the blood of broken men; thousands, 
millions, were to die of starvation; the best blood, the 
most splendid manhood of France and England was 
to be sacrificed to stay the lawless might of Germany. 
Because the German Kaiser saw, in the assassina- 



14 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

tion of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, a pretext for 
the consummation of imperial plans, the Great Euro- 
pean War began. 



CHAPTER II. 
Germany's dream of empire. 

Successful competition was not enough for Ger- 
many. A degree of present prosperity and an assured 
future that would have satisfied a democratic nation 
was not enough for a people with imperial ideas. 
Germany looked at the map of the world and saw 
many things that did not please her. She had an 
immense population in an area smaller than Texas. 
Nowhere in the world was there a place to which 
Germans could emigrate without passing outside the 
German Empire and outside of German control. Ger- 
many desired to retain authority over Germans in 
whatever part of the world they might be. 

Germany, as a completed nation, had come into this 
organized world too late to take part in the organiza- 
tion. For centuries the Teutonic people were divided 
into many small and a few large principalities. They 
seldom acted in common, were arrayed against one. 
another in the Thirty Years War, in the Napoleonic 
conflicts, and at other periods. It was not until just 
before the Franco-Prussian War that the German 
states united in a confederation. At the close of 
that conflict the confederation was proclaimed an em- 
pire at Versailles in 1871. The King of Prussia 
was crowned emperor and Germany became one na- 
tion; more than eight hundred years later than Eng- 
land, three hundred years later than France. 

In 1 87 1, Germany had all of Europe that was 
rightfully hers, and some that was not. Outside of 
Europe she held nothing. All the great discoveries 
of land had been made by other nations and the choice 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 5 

regions colonized. Africa, the last continent to be 
explored, was then at the point of partition. But 
Germany showed little interest in colonies. Her pilot, 
Bismarck, had his eyes elsewhere. When it was too 
late, Germany discovered that colonies were desirable. 
England had claimed a part of equatorial Africa, 
France, nearly all the vast region of North Africa, 
small Belgium obtained control of the Congo Free 
State, an immense territory of great wealth. Only 
four districts in Africa, two of them very small, were 
left for Germany. Six island groups in the Pacific 
Ocean were acquired. But the population of all Ger- 
many's colonies was scarcely more than twelve mil- 
lion, only a thirtieth part of that of India, England's 
richest possession. 

Germany was envious of the British Empire, while 
despising its strength. She called it an accidental 
empire, with no cohesion, needing only a vigorous 
attack to fall apart. She was envious of the great 
domains of Canada and Australia, that presented the 
fields for development that were her great need. Ger- 
many believed in her ability to rule as much of the 
world as she might acquire. She saw great peoples 
here and there that needed only to be mastered and 
organized according to her methods in order to become 
productive in her interest. Such dependencies would 
have immense buying power. Germany knew she 
could sell vastly more goods to India than England 
was doing, even though England yearly sold to her 
principal colonies goods of greater value than to Ger- 
many, France, and the United States. 

With such views, Germany set herself to the amaz- 
ing task of rearranging the world to suit herself, 
Other nations have coveted ; German imperialism was 
literally true, based on far reaching plans, on a will 
to succeed, not merely on desire. She looked abroad 
and made her program. There were lands and peoples 
far off that one day should come into her empire; but 



l6 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

they could wait. There were lands and peoples nearer 
at hand that she would control first, and to gain these 
was to be her immediate task. She coveted these 
lands that she might pattern them after the German 
heart. It mattered not that her future empire should 
include parts of Russia, France, all of Belgium, 
Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Asia Minor, parts of the 
British Empire. 

German imperialism grew unheeded. All through 
the early years of the Kaiser's reign the idea spread 
and gained converts. The great manufacturers had 
to be won, had to put themselves under government 
control. The dazzling prize of commercial monopoly, 
of a vast empire, was ever dangled before their eyes. 
The Kaiser in a speech declared that no territorial 
changes should be made anywhere in the world without 
Germany's consent. Her first attempts at expansion 
were unfortunate. Germany was hostile toward 
America during the war with Spain, and the mem- 
orable incident in Manila Bay, whereby a German 
admiral attempted to browbeat Admiral Dewey from 
his position as conqueror, was perhaps the first intima- 
tion America had of the new German diplomacy. 
Five years later, Germany attempted to gain a foot- 
hold in Venezuela, but she speedily discovered it would 
be only at the price of war with the United States. 
Nearer home, the Kaiser meddled with the affairs of 
France and England without gaining any decided 
advantage. 

Not at all daunted by first failures, Germany per- 
sisted in plans for expansion. Her lack of success 
was used to show the people at home that a wide- 
spread conspiracy existed to throttle her. Some time 
during the first years of the twentieth century a 
concrete project took form. Since England controlled 
the seas, Germany would first control the land. The 
idea of a great continuous empire in Europe and 
Asia, which was to be known as the Middle Europe 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 7 

plan, took shape. Russia was on the east, France 
and England on the west. Neither would be suitable 
for Germany's empire except as she could seize upon 
strategic points. But to the southeast, through Aus- 
tria, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, and on to the Far East 
Germany saw her path of empire. Austria-Hungary 
was to be a partner, the others were to be dependencies. 
India was in the plan, not for the immediate future, 
but as an inevitable result. Germany was thinking 
in terms of centuries. Egypt was to be a prize, since 
it commanded the sea lanes between Europe and Asia. 
The many alien peoples of this region were to be trained 
and molded for German purposes as only Germany 
knew how to do it. The splendor of such an empire 
took possession of the German mind. Was not Ger- 
many the most enlightened nation in the world ? Was 
she not the natural leader of the backward nations? 
Were not her people the dominant race? 

An empire in South America or Africa would be 
accessible only by sea, and as long as England held 
potential control of the sea such an empire would be 
subject to loss in time of war. But an empire such 
as Germany now planned would have no maritime 
liabilities. Not only would it be invulnerable to Eng- 
land's fleet, the only world force the Germans really 
feared, but it also would strike a deadly blow at the 
British Empire. This proposed empire would have 
unbroken communication by land between all parts. 
It held rich territory where Germany's surplus popu- 
lation could settle and still be a part of the Fatherland. 
There would be a vast multitude of men to train and 
arm against the future menace of Russian hordes. 
Germany would be transformed from a position of 
fancied disadvantage to one of absolute superiority. 

This was the great dream of empire that Germany 
determined to realize. It mattered not that fulfill- 
ment would destroy the independence of nations, dis- 
rupt the British Empire, throttle France, Russia, and 



1 8 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

Holland. Such ends were to be desired, from Ger- 
many's point of view. Other parts of western Europe 
were necessary to Germany's program and she was 
determined to have them some day. 

Germany felt cooped up from the sea. As far as 
navigation was concerned, she had as free access to 
the high seas as England had. But strategically, 
she felt at a disadvantage. Every ocean-going Ger- 
man ship passed through English waters, at the tactical 
mercy of the English fleet. The fact that England 
never moved a finger to hinder the passage of any 
nation's commerce, made no difference to Germany. 
There must be "free" ports; — i.e., not subject to con- 
trol. Germany therefore included Antwerp, Calais, 
and Boulogne in the coming empire. She was not 
satisfied to be able to import the raw materials for 
her factories from the ends of the earth; she must 
have the raw materials under her control, such of 
them as were within practical reach. She counted 
Bismarck as short-sighted for not taking more of the 
coal and iron regions of France in 1871. 

Germany's campaign for empire must first begin 
at home. The people must be taught to wish for ex- 
pansion, to know themselves for supermen, worthy 
of world power. They must be taught to know the 
army as the one vital need, to bear the burden of a 
large navy. They must be taught to despise the 
French and English, so that a war of conquest should 
seem right. They must be taught to fear Russia, so 
that they would bear the increasing burdens of arma- 
ment without complaint. They must be taught to 
believe that their conquest of nations would bring 
the incalculable blessings of German organization to 
the conquered peoples. Such a deliberate campaign 
for such outrageous ambitions was nowhere in the 
civilized world possible, except in Germany. In other 
ages, world conquerors had planned and won, or failed. 
They had moved their armies as unthinking pawns 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 19 

that knew not why they fought. Not since the days 
of imperial Rome had a whole nation been imbued 
with the consuming idea of its right to rule. 

And so the Great War crept upon an unsuspecting 
world. There were alarmists who shouted and wrote 
warnings of Germany's warlike intentions; but they 
were unheeded. To the rest of the world such de- 
liberate planning was unbelievable. Yet the nations 
were cautious enough to prepare defenses. England 
kept her fleet at a standard because of her island posi- 
tion. France and Russia maintained armaments be- 
cause Germany did. But all three nations cried aloud 
at the intolerable burden of militarism and wished for 
an. agreement to limit expenditure. England pub- 
licly proposed to cease the building of battleships for 
a period, but the offer merely convinced the Germans 
that they had nothing to fear from England , and 
served only to spur them on. 

Germany doubted not that she would attain the first 
steps of her project as easily as she had won the 
Franco-Prussian War. But she spared no pains, over- 
looked no possible means of insuring success. The 
army was ready for instant action. But the armies 
of other countries must be unready. Subsidized agents 
in every foreign country worked secretly and publicly 
against national defense. She took advantage of 
every quarrel in England, France, Russia, to paralyze 
rivalry. Her spies were everywhere. They made 
maps of almost every square mile of a possible cam- 
paign ground. They were in the government offices 
of all nations. While Germany's horizon was the 
east, it was in western Europe that any effective oppo- 
sition would be encountered. England and Russia 
were the natural enemies of her plan and France was 
the ally of both. German diplomats strove to dis- 
rupt the alliance, and failing, pursued their course, 
convinced of success, opposition or no opposition. 

It is not yet clear whether Germany chose in advance 



20 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

a time to strike, or being ready, decided to move when- 
ever a favorable time should come. In either case, 
the time arrived in the summer of 1914. There can 
be little doubt but that the German leaders half ex- 
pected to gain the opening advantages without war. 
Serbia was to be made practically a subject nation, 
and this done, Germany with her allies would have, 
at one step, a continuous empire from Hamburg to 
Bagdad. It seemed so small a step, so easy of ac- 
complishment. It was not then understood how com- 
plete was German dominance in Bulgaria and Turkey. 
Of the three great powers, a change in the status of 
Serbia would affect directly only Russia. If Russia 
did not make a move, France would not. England was 
not threatened — apparently. And Germany believed 
that Russia would not fight for Serbia. Seven years 
before, Austria had annexed Bosnia. Russia pro- 
tested, but at a threat of war from Germany, with- 
drew in defeat. Germany told a half truth when she 
protested she did not want war. She intended to 
seize, through Austria, the first of her spoils, and she 
hoped it would be done without war. Possessed of 
overweening confidence, the army wanted war ; flushed 
with power, the statesmen risked a conflict as a 
possible cost of empire. Both military leaders, who 
were dominant, and the statesmen, determined to go 
ahead. 

June 28, 19 14, will be ever memorable as the most 
fateful date in the world's history. The event that 
occurred then shook the foundations of human society. 
Intense excitement prevailed in Germany and Austria- 
Hungary, the leaders realizing the Day had come, the 
army feeling the undercurrent of preparation. Ger- 
many made final mercantile, financial, naval and mili- 
tary preparation. She could not have wished for a 
better time, as she saw the condition of her possible 
opponents. France was in an uproar over the Cail- 
laux case and all parties were denouncing one another. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 21 

England appeared to be on the verge of civil war 
over the Irish problem. All of the British people 
were taking sides. The English colonies were far 
away, and Germany mocked the thought of effective 
military opposition from them. As German naval 
officers drank again to "The Day," it was with the 
knowledge that the day was near. 

Nearly a month elapsed between the assassination 
of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and the Austrian 
demands on Serbia. These demands were so unusual 
that it plainly was not expected that Serbia would 
concede them. A storm of protest arose from the 
great powers, and an exchange of notes began, those 
from England and France offering suggestions for 
peace, while Germany declined to interfere with her 
ally. Russia at once warned Austria-Hungary that 
she could not stand by and see Serbia conquered. 
Austria pronounced the matter as one concerning only 
Serbia and herself. The Serbian reply, conciliatory 
in the extreme, was hardly considered, and on July 
28th, Austria-Hungary declared war. And now ex- 
citement reigned in every capital of the world. The 
exchange of notes became an almost hourly event, as 
England and France saw themselves being drawn into 
war. Their influence for peace was still exerted to 
the uttermost. In the last hours of July, it became 
manifest that Russia would support Serbia by force 
of arms. Too late Austria tried to withdraw from 
the brink of the awful conflict. But the imperial 
plans of the Kaiser had been set in motion and now 
Germany took the lead to insure that there should be 
no faint-heartedness. The Russians were commanded 
to stop the mobilization of armies, and the threat 
being unheeded, Germany, on August ist, declared 
war on Russia. France was asked to give her atti- 
tude, with the alternative of surrendering Verdun, 
Toul and Nancy if she remained neutral. The reply 



22 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

being what was expected, Germany, on August 3d, 
declared war on France. The Great War had begun. 
But the war was to be far greater than Germany 
anticipated. England had not been counted on as a 
probable opponent. The German ambassador made 
frantic efforts to keep her neutral. And when, follow- 
ing Germany's invasion of Belgium, England, on 
August 4th, declared war, Germany might well have 
wished to turn back the clock of time five days. For 
her great dream of empire was doomed. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE GERMAN RUSH INTO FRANCE. 

At the outbreak of the war, Germany found herself 
with two battle fronts. Strong foes were east and 
west of her. This situation, to a weak nation, would 
have been almost instantly fatal. But there are cer- 
tain advantages in a central position, and Germany 
prepared to avoid the danger while making the fullest 
use of the advantage. A network of railways on 
both frontiers made possible a rapid concentration of 
troops at any point. This was to prove Germany's 
greatest asset. It had been noticed that Germany was 
building more railways near the Belgian frontier as 
well as on the Russian and French borders. The 
Belgian government was alarmed, and unofficial con- 
ferences with England were held to plan military aid 
in case of invasion. Nothing more practical than 
documents came of it; documents that the Germans 
were to find later, and advertise as justification of 
their own invasion. 

The strategic railways leading to Belgium were a 
vital part of Germany's war plans. She had deter- 
mined to disregard her pledged word and to invade 
France through Belgium. There was a measure of 
advantage in this. Germany realized that her prob- 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 23 

able enemies would have superior strength, and to 
offset it, she would strike a crushing blow before the 
enemy strength could be fully exerted. Russia, a 
huge country with poor transportation facilities, would 
necessarily be slow to mobilize. Russia could be dis- 
regarded for perhaps a month, and in that month 
Germany planned to crush France completely. This 
was a conception bolder and more vast than any 
military commander ever attempted. If successful, 
it would dwarf all the campaigns in the history of 
war. Germany's two recent wars had been won in 
a few weeks, in campaigns involving a few hundred 
thousand men. To repeat this on a scale comprising 
hundreds of miles of battlefield and millions of 
soldiers was the task Germany set for her generals. 
All her plans were for a short campaign; all the 
officers and men were fired with the expectation of 
capturing Paris in a month or six weeks. Thousands 
of medals were coined in advance of the event cele- 
brating the triumphant entry. 

Given the military necessity for a quick decision, 
Germany chose to advance through Belgium rather 
than directly across the French frontier. The reason 
for this choice was the nature of the ground. The 
entire French border is a region of high hills, rising 
in places to mountains. Armies are not easily de- 
ployed in such territory when it is strongly defended. 
German military leaders feared their armies could 
not advance rapidly enough through this region to 
win the quick victory they required; and the fighting 
throughout the war justified the opinion. The other 
road to France that led through Belgium, the ancient 
road followed by the armies of centuries, had no such 
natural obstacles. A flat country, thickly settled, with 
roads and railways for the rapid transit of huge 
armies. 

The Germans chose this route and thereby incurred 
the condemnation of civilization. They first de- 



24 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

manded of Belgium the right of passage, promising to 
withdraw after the war. King Albert replied "Bel- 
gium is a nation, not a road." The violation of 
Belgium was one of a long series of stupendous 
blunders. The plan of campaign, that of destroying 
the French armies by a quick blow, failed, and Belgium 
became a heavy liability to the German cause. It 
more than doubled the length of the western front; 
it became a death trap, a snare, a phantom of victory, 
to grasp which the life and strength of the German 
nation was sacrificed. It made certain the hostility 
of England. It ultimately brought the United States 
into the fray. It lost the war for Germany. 

France had a magnificent army; how splendid the 
world did not suspect until war had tried it. Long 
dreading war, France had armed for defense where 
Germany had armed for conquest. The fortresses 
facing the German frontier were marvels of strength, 
and were believed to ■ be impregnable. The French 
army of 1914 was not the army of 1870. France gave 
the keeping of her defenses to professional soldiers, 
not to politicians, and the trained specialists saved the 
day. 

When war was imminent, Italy, as well as Germany, 
was a possible foe. Italy had for years been a partner 
with Germany and Austria-Hungary in the Triple 
Alliance. An attack from Italy as well as from Ger- 
many would have been serious indeed. But Italy 
refused to take part in an offensive war, and promptly 
informed France and England that she would remain 
neutral. This invaluable information greatly simpli- 
fied the situation for France. 

At the outbreak of war, Fiench armies promptly 
carried the conflict over the frontier into Alsace and 
Lorraine. All France hailed with joy the attempt to 
regain the lost provinces. There were some successes 
at first ; the French captured Miilhausen on August 8th, 
lost and retook it several times, lost it finally, and 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 2$ 

thereafter, during the war, did not make a general 
advance along the southern end of the battle front. 
The campaign as a whole was a failure. In the 
Lorraine attack one French corps gave way entirely, 
the only time during the war that this was true. A 
large French army was imperiled and it was extri- 
cated only with the utmost heroism and the most skill- 
ful generalship. A certain general named Foch was 
in command of one corps in this section; needless to 
say it was not his corps that was routed. The French 
were thrown on the defensive, not only by the attacks 
in their immediate front, but by the situation in the 
north. The Germans were coming through Belgium ! 

Germany threw nineteen army corps, gathered into 
eight armies, into France and Belgium in the first 
rush, while seventeen more corps almost immediately 
followed. The world, accustomed to war in terms of 
regiments, suddenly began to read of the movements 
of millions of armed men. Impossible things had 
come to pass. Eight million soldiers were in battle 
lines in a few weeks after war began. 

While a part of the German armies advanced 
through Alsace, Lorraine, and Luxemburg and en- 
gaged the French in a score of bloody battles, another 
part of them planned to slip through Belgium, turn the 
flank of the French, roll them eastward into a trap 
and compel surrender. On August 3d, the first of 
the German divisions crossed the Belgian frontier. 
The next day, having been refused passage through 
Liege, they attacked the forts, expecting only nominal 
resistance. It was then that the authors of Pan- 
Germanism faced another of their many miscalcula- 
tions; the Belgians replied, shot for shot, with fearful 
effect upon ranks advancing in close order. How 
happy were those first Germans that fell! They 
escaped the long years of fighting and the humiliating 
defeat that followed. 

For four days the German advance was held up. 



26 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

Repeated assaults by their infantry was fruitless. 
The Anglo-American public, not realizing the magni- 
tude of German preparation, cherished, during these 
few days, the hope that the foe would be stopped at 
the outset. Then came obscure reports that the forts 
had fallen, reports that told of gigantic guns, a single 
shell from which obliterated the strongest concrete 
fort. But the Belgians had proved themselves heroes. 
The gain to the Allied cause of the four days' delay 
at Liege was incalculable. The French had a respite 
in which to change their mobilization to meet the 
emergency. The English had time to come up. On 
August ioth the first British troops were landed in 
France. Two army corps under Sir John French 
disappeared somewhere into the battle zone. As an 
index to the enormous transportation problems of the 
armies of millions, this comparatively small British 
force required thirty-two trains daily for many days 
to move it from the French port to the battle front. 

The world, hoping and expecting unreasonable 
things, thought that the French and English would 
go to the aid of the Belgians at Liege. Instead, it 
read of an apparently triumphant German procession. 
Villages and towns were engulfed. At Louvain the 
Belgians again attempted to hold the enemy, but on 
the 19th they retreated. To save Brussels from de- 
struction, they did not defend it, and on August 20th 
the invading armies entered. Thereafter, for many 
days, long lines of gray claid German soldiers goose- 
stepped through the Belgian capital, gayly shouting 
that they were going to Paris. 

The strong fortress of Namur was expected to hold 
the Germans even longer than had Liege. But they 
made no more infantry assaults on forts. The armies 
flowed around Namur while the 42-centimeter battered 
the forts to pieces. Namur fell on August 22d, and 
the Germans marched southward at full speed, confi- 
dent of victory, in spite of the week or ten days' delay 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 27 

in their schedule. The same day they engaged the 
French and English forces. At Charleroi the French, 
at Mons the British, fought fiercely but vainly. The 
Germans were in full swing and in overwhelming 
numbers. The Allied armies were quickly outflanked, 
and on the night of August 23d the French retreated. 
The British valiantly held on almost too long and 
were in clanger of being cut off. By sheer valor 
they flung back superior numbers. The Kaiser had 
called them the "contemptible British Army." After 
Mons, the British proudly called themselves the "Old 
Contemptibles." But on August 24th the famous 
retreat from Mons began. Back went the British 
through Valenciennes. At Cambrai they made a 
fierce attempt to halt. But the French still retreated, 
and the British had to go too. They marched in 
retreat through many a town, back toward which they 
were to struggle for four weary, bloody years. 

The Germans swept into northern France like a 
hurricane, rushing into and past Lille, Arras, Amiens, 
Rheims. Ever the French fell back, fighting where a 
battle was profitable, retreating where it was not. 
France was magnificent in trusting herself wholly to 
the army. In 1870 France lost her armies because 
the politicians demanded that certain cities be saved. 
But to Jofrre cities were as nothing in time of war 
beside the army. Not even Paris would be defended 
at the expense of the army. Only the army could 
save France. So the French gave way, obeying the 
master mind. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE MARNE, THE AISNE, AND YPRES. 

The world stood aghast at the power of the vic- 
torious Germans. They seemed to have the war won 
at a blow. Every day saw them twenty or thirty 
miles farther into France. The roads were choked 



28 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

with fugitive peasants fleeing from their homes. The 
French government left Paris. About this time news 
began to filter through of dreadful outrages in Bel- 
gium and France, of old men shot down, of thousands 
of girls and women violated, of the inhabitants of 
whole towns massacred. Germany was unheedful-of 
the white flame of wrath in England, Belgium and 
France, but she was alarmed at the tide of indignation 
in neutral countries, and desperately attempted to 
disprove the atrocities where possible, and to justify 
them where she could not deny. German officials con- 
vinced certain well-known respected American corre- 
spondents that no outrages had been committed. The 
newspapers of America gave little credence at first to 
the reports. It was months before enough evidence 
leaked out to convince Americans of the dreadful 
happenings. Louvain, Termonde, Malines, Dinant, 
Aerschot, and thousands of individual misdeeds will 
dishonor the German name for generations. 

The Germans had set the middle of September for 
their entry into Paris. The delay in Belgium dis- 
arranged the schedule, but the early days of Sep- 
tember found them within a few miles of the French 
capital. The prize seemed certain of attainment. 
The city was not attacked at once, however; the Ger- 
man generals were trained soldiers, armies, not 
cities, were the objectives. Von Kluck, who com- 
manded the German right wing, had defeated the 
British and also a French army and had driven them 
to the protection of the Paris forts. Believing himself 
safe from these for the present, he swerved to the 
southeast, marching past Paris and across the front 
of the troops in line there. His part in the campaign 
was to turn the flank of the French and force them 
eastward against the other German armies. But 
Joffre's successful retreat had now made this impos- 
sible, and Von Kluck modified his program to an 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 20, 

attempt to cut the French in two east of Paris, force 
one part into Paris and roll the other to the east. 

Joffre had foreseen such a move. He was ter- 
ribly short of men. The first mobilization had yielded 
only 800,000 men. The second draft of a half mil- 
lion was only then coming into line. From a part of 
these he formed a new army, the Ninth, and entrusted 
it to General Foch, placing him in what he believed 
would be the critical point. The Sixth army he left in 
Paris for the moment; he would have a use for it 
later. On September 5th he called upon the French 
to die where they stood rather than yield another mile. 
Then, if ever, the Germans must be stopped. All of 
France knew the critical time was come. 

The conflict that followed has become known as 
the Battle of the Marne. From September 6th to 
10th the armies grappled in a death struggle, with 
liberty and autocracy in the balance, the Germans 
fighting to complete their victory, that they might be 
back home by Christmas, laden with the spoils of 
cities; the French fighting for their homes, for the 
life of their beloved country, for the freedom of the 
world. The hills and valleys of France became the 
scene of warfare as bloody, of valor as sublime, as 
the world had ever seen. The French obeyed Joffre's 
command, they stood, they died, and they conquered. 

On the second day of the battle, Joffre made his 
first use of the Paris army, throwing it onto the flank 
and rear of Von Kluck's forces. The attack was a 
total surprise to the enemy, who considered the French 
to be at their last gasp. The Germans gave way at 
first, but soon rallied. Von Kluck brought back 
enough of his troops to hold the new attack. And now 
Joffre set more armies in motion, the Fifth French 
army and the British force, which were next in line east 
of Paris. These troops pressed the enemy back all 
along their front. But this attack was not decisive; 



Von Kluck still held his lines, was advancing else- 
where. 

Next in line, besides the two French and the Brit- 
ish armies, was the Ninth army of General Foch. He 
bore the brunt of the attack all through the German 
advance of the Marne. It was where he stood that 
the foe made his fiercest effort for final victory. The 
ground was littered with the fallen, there was no re- 
spite day nor night for the defenders. Regiments 
were ground to pieces under the terrific pressure. 
When one of his officers complained that the men were 
exhausted and would have to retreat, Foch replied 
"So are the Germans. Attack at once." To Joffre, 
in response to an appeal for an advance, he said "My 
right is broken, my left is retreating; I will advance 
with my center." The decisive moment came on the 
9th. Foch's right wing was hard pressed. But the 
enemy overstepped himself, opened a gap in his line, 
and into his flank Foch threw a single division, the 42d, 
the only one he had to spare. But it was decisive. 
The result was the complete victory of the Marne. 
Von Kluck's supreme attempt had failed, now he was 
in peril on both flanks, and was compelled to retreat 
instantly. The other German armies west of Verdun 
had to follow or be outflanked. The war was de- 
cided on September 9, 19 14, although the enemy 
continued to fight for more than four years, and 
seemed often to be approaching victory during that 
time. But he never came so near to triumph as at 
the first Battle of the Marne. Few, if any, of the 
decisive battles of the world's history were more 
simple. In this war, involving millions of soldiers, a 
single division, numbering a few thousand brave 
troops, directed by a master mind, was sufficient to 
decide the contest. Americans will ever be proud of 
their own 43d, the Rainbow division, but the French 
42d will be ranked with the three hundred Spartans 
of Leonidas. In losing the Battle of the Marne the 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 



31 



Germans lost their great opportunity to win the war. 
They lost the initial advantage their preparations had 
given them, lost, for the time, 'strategic freedom. 
They had failed to overwhelm the French, and all 
their calculations had been based upon doing this. 
They had lost all chance of doing so at a single blow. 
And they still had to meet the Russian army, and had 
to face an evergrowing force of British and colonial 
troops. 

Several traditions have grown out of the Battle of 
the Marne: one, the Foch tradition, which ascribes 
a more spectacular part to his army than the fearful 
pounding that actually occurred, a pounding that was 
not far from defeat, but was resisted until victory 
came; the other, the tradition of the Paris army, that 
was believed to have swept the Germans into rout. 
The victor of the Marne was Marshal JorTre. It was 
he that ordered the various moves that together 
brought the victory. 

For several days the Germans retreated northward, 
the tired French pushing them hard. Back through 
Amiens the armies went, through Chateau-Thierry, 
which was not to see Germans again for nearly four 
years. Rheims was retaken, the German line west 
of Verdun swung as on a hinge, the far end falling 
back in haste to escape destruction. The French and 
English hoped to push the enemy entirely from France, 
but on the 14th, they found the foe entrenched along 
the heights north of the Aisne, apparently determined 
to make a stand. The struggle that followed was 
even fiercer than before; a victory was long in the 
balance. The Germans had prepared these entrench- 
ments even while their armies were apparently march- 
ing to victory, and now their foresight enabled them 
to hold a great part of the French territory they had 
overrun. The armies were getting their first taste 
and the outside world -its first news of trench warfare. 
For nine days the Battle of the Aisne was a continuous 



32 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

struggle; after that period it flickered out, while major 
operations went on elsewhere. 

Even while the Battle of the Marne was involving 
all the armies west of Verdun, the Germans were 
attacking to the southeast, as well. This latter phase 
of the conflict was not affected immediately by the 
great French victory at the Marne. Even while the 
Germans were making their great retreat to the Aisne 
they continued to attack and advance in the region 
beyond Verdun. Verdun itself was in danger, Bel fort 
was attacked. The Kaiser was awaiting the hour to 
enter Nancy. The Germans were preparing to push 
home the attack of their armies in the St. Mihiel 
salient when JofTre came to the rescue. The relief 
came, not at the threatened spot, but at the other end 
of the battle line. 

The Battle of the Aisne was fought with the flanks 
of both armies resting — not on the North sea, as was 
the case later and throughout the war — but on the 
Oise River near Noyon, south of St. Quentin. Fail- 
ing to drive back the Germans by direct attack, Joffre 
now attempted to outflank them. This strategy very 
nearly succeeded. Von Kluck again saw some peril- 
ous moments. The Germans were compelled to 
abandon their attacks elsewhere and rush divisions to 
their sorely pressed flank. Then came a race to the 
sea. As fast as the French and English extended 
their lines, the Germans brought from somewhere 
troops to face them. JofTre continued to hold the 
advantage and he was able in a measure to control the 
direction of the front. The battle lines were thus 
formed in a line almost directly northward, whereas 
a westward trend would have left the Germans in 
control of the French coast opposite Britain. The ■ 
race continued through the last days of September 
and the first half of October. Then, on October 
15th, both armies extended their lines to the sea and 
to neither side was a flank attack possible. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 33 

There was scant respite for the wearied armies. 
On October 9th the Germans captured Antwerp. 
This, the second most strongly fortified city in the 
world, resisted only eleven days. The huge guns of 
the enemy soon had it at their mercy. The Belgian 
army and a detachment of British marines evacuated 
the city, thus abandoning virtually all of Belgium to 
the invader. The fall of Antwerp released several 
German corps, which were rushed to a new attack. 
Furious because they had failed to grasp the French 
channel ports while they were undefended, the German 
command now attempted to break through and capture 
Calais, their ''window on the sea." Still confident 
of his army's ability to crash a way through, the 
Kaiser set an early date for his triumphant entry into 
Calais. The attack was launched about October 18th 
and was first directed against the Belgians, who held 
the line immediately adjoining the sea. The harassed 
Belgians fought valiantly. The Germans savagely. 
By sheer weight of numbers the enemy was making 
progress toward his goal, and on October 25th crossed 
the Yser River, the only natural line of defense. At 
this juncture, the British navy came to the rescue. 
The fighting being within effective range from the 
ocean, British monitors came up and poured a destruc- 
tive fire into the German ranks. To protect them- 
selves, the Germans shifted their attack further south, 
but on the 29th the Belgians flooded the country, again 
checking the exasperated Germans, who were com- 
pelled tO' retreat across the Yser. Once more the 
attack was shifted, and the French and Belgians, who 
held the lines at Dixmude, were assailed savagely, but 
without greater result to the enemy than the posses- 
sion of part of the, ruined town. 

The British army had removed from its place along 
the battle front of the Aisne to a new position adjoin- 
ing the Belgians. This put them nearer their bases at 
Boulogne and Havre. Numbering less than one hun- 



34 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

dred thousand in the beginning, there were one hun- 
dred and seventy-five thousand soon after the Marne. 
Regiments had been hurried from all corners of the 
empire, and such as were seasoned troops went into the 
front lines almost at once. Besides the British, native 
battalions from India had arrived, the first of them 
landing in the south of France on September 25th. 
Altogether, it was quite a formidable British army 
that faced the Germans at the beginning of November. 

It was against the British that the Germans next 
directed their attack, even while they continued to 
press the Belgians. The best German troops were 
now thrown into the fray. Day after day fresh regi- 
ments were sacrificed. There was a massing of 
artillery such as the war had not yet seen. There 
were the direct commands of the "all highest" and also 
the hatred of the Germans for the British, whom they 
blamed for their failure to win the war. Against the 
German onslaught the British opposed far inferior 
numbers. The difference in artillery was even greater. 
Against large caliber guns the British opposed small 
ones; against machine gun fire they opposed rifles, 
against scores of assaults they opposed cold steel and 
heroism. The attack centered around the ancient 
town of Ypres, where the British occupied a salient. 
Bloody "Wipers" became a byword in the British 
Empire. 

During the long continuous battle, winter came 
upon the armies. Fighting often in water up to their 
waists, sleeping on frozen ground, enduring frost, 
sleet and snow, the armies fought on. But not all the 
massed guns and men of the Germans could win them 
a cleared road to Calais. In vain were the plans of 
war lords, the commands of generals, the bravery of 
German soldiers. After five weeks of terrific fighting 
the enemy had progressed scarcely a mile toward his 
goal. The battle died down to desultory fighting, to 
local raids. The campaign of 19 14 was over. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 35 

The French on the right of the English shared in 
the defense of the channel ports. The fact that the 
general in command at this point was Foch was as- 
surance that the Germans would be held. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 

Napoleon in exile declared that in one hundred 
years Europe would be either republican or Cossack. 
Neither side of his prediction was fulfilled in 1914. 
But the rise of the Russian Empire since Napoleon's 
time is one of the marvels of history. Numbering a 
few millions in the Middle Ages, not more than fifty 
millions a century ago, the Russian people had in- 
creased to one hundred and seventy millions in our 
day. The empire was pressing into the heart of 
(Asia and spreading into western Europe. England 
had long feared Russia's designs on India, but in the 
last eight years had come to an understanding. Ger- 
many affected to be the champion of civilization 
against the oncoming ''barbarous Slavs." 

Russia had never been an industrial nation, but in 
recent years she was beginning to produce as well as 
to consume the products of modern commercialism. 
One thing Russia needed badly: a seaport. The 
Baltic ports were icebound in winter. Vladivostock 
was far away. There was only one seaport that 
Russia could hope, to secure, and that one was the 
prize of the ages, a very bone of contention, Constan- 
tinople. She had fought two wars, during the nine- 
teenth century, to secure the Golden Horn, and each 
time had been balked by the great powers. 

Russia was highly civilized in one respect : her 
diplomatic activities. Her statesmen, ever restless, 
were always seeking an advantage, whether in Af- 
ghanistan, in China, or in the Balkans. She would 



36 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

have been a congenial partner for Germany, had not 
their interests clashed so irretrievably. Russia con- 
sidered herself the protector of the Balkans, having 
been the means of securing their freedom. Most of 
the Balkan peoples, except the Roumanians, were of 
Slav blood, and they looked to Russia to uphold them. 
So, whatever judgment may be passed upon Russian 
foreign policy in general, she was unquestionably 
right in her decision to stand, by Serbia. 

The world did not look for great military successes 
from Russia. Less than forty years had passed since 1 
she was barely able to defeat Turkey. Only ten years 
had gone by since she failed miserably in the war 
with Japan. But this latter war was to Russia what 
the Boer War was to Britain ; it revealed the deficien- 
cies of the army. The ten years succeeding were well 
spent, as events were to prove. 

Russia had a peculiar frontier, as regards her two 
chief enemies, Austria-Hungary and Germany. Rus- 
sian Poland was a large block of country thrust far 
into the region held by her foes. Germany occupied 
the land north and west, Austria occupied Galicia on 
the south. This section of Russia, therefore, inevi- 
tably the battle ground of a war, was bordered on 
three sides by the enemy. The first goal of a cam- 
paign would be the conquest of the north and south 
flanks, so as to give a short straight battle line, one 
end resting on the Baltic Sea, the other on the high 
Carpathian Mountains. Russian railroads, even in 
the thickly settled regions, were comparatively few. 
This was a disadvantage, not only in mobilization but 
also in subsequent campaigns. It was understood that 
Russia would attack as soon as possible, so as to 
relieve France. The German campaign was built upon 
the estimated delay of Russia in assembling her armies. 

But Russia mobilized with remarkable swiftness. 
Fully two weeks before friend or foe believed it 
possible, she was in the field ; the main armies attacked 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 37 

the Galician front, while strong forces were marching 
into German territory in East Prussia. On the 17th 
of August, while German armies were still in upper 
Belgium, Russian armies were sweeping back the 
Germans along the Baltic. In this region are wide 
flat reaches dotted with marshes and lakes — the Ma- 
surian Lake region. The Germans at one time planned 
to drain this land, but a certain old general, Von 
Hindenburg, had intervened, insisting that the lakes 
would be of great value in case of war with Russia. 
He became known as a crank on the subject — but the 
lakes were not drained. 

The Russians met with success at first. < They pene- 
trated far into East Prussia, sending a shock of fear 
even to Berlin. The German commander was instantly 
recalled and the old retired Von Hindenburg was 
pressed back into service. The veteran knew the 
region better than most persons know their own city. 
He asked for four army corps, which were rushed 
from the west front. Then, making use of the stra- 
tegic railways, he fell upon the Russians at Tannen- 
berg and Allenstein. He caught the Russians in a 
maze of swamps where they were practically lost, 
separated from guns and supports. The attack crum- 
pled them up at once. The result of two days fight- 
ing was one of the most complete victories of the 
war.; one hundred thousand Russians were killed and 
wounded, seventy thousand more were captured; one 
whole army was destroyed. The victory, coming dur- 
ing the great advance into France, was received with 
wild joy by the German people. Von Hindenburg 
became the national hero, was made a field marshal. 
The success in the east enabled the government to 
smooth over the subsequent defeat at the Marne. It 
is possible, indeed, that the French won at the Marne 
because the Germans were compelled to shift large 
bodies of troops to meet the Russian advance. The 
four corps that were sent to Von Hindenburg might 



38 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

have given a different ending to the Marne had they 
remained in France. 

Meanwhile, Russia met with far greater success 
against the Austrians in the south. An offensive by 
the foe was nipped in the bud, and then the Russians 
attacked all along the Galician front. The armies 
of the dual monarchy were swept back as easily as the 
Russians had been in the north. The Russians sur- 
vived the defeat of Tannenberg the more easily be- 
cause they were able to announce such stupendous 
movements and magnificent victories over the Aus- 
trians. The chief asset of the Russians was their 
numbers. The terrible defeats they suffered would 
have been fatal to a lesser nation, but they only 
caused Russia to withdraw on that particular front 
while she swept on elsewhere. By the end of August 
one and one-half million Russians were attacking the 
Austrians. On September 1st they took the city of 
Lemberg, causing a loss to the Austrians of one hun- 
dred and thirty thousand men. On September 17th 
they invested the important city of Przemysl; four 
days later, another fortress, Jaroslav, was carried by 
storm. The Russians pressed rapidly on, and by Oc- 
tober 1st were approaching the western limits of 
Galicia and were swarming over the passes of the 
Carpathians. The military strength of Austria- 
Hungary was threatened with destruction before the 
war was three months old. Complete defeat seemed 
inevitable. Germany was compelled to make still 
further exertions to save her ally, and German armies, 
German railways and German generalship came to the 
rescue. Von Hindenburg launched his second blow. 

He had first to defeat a second attempt to invade 
East Prussia, which he did about October 10th. Then, 
while the Austrians were spurred to renewed exer- 
tions, Von Hindenburg suddenly attacked in the center, 
driving through the Russian armies. The Russians 
were compelled to make a general retreat, abandoning 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 39 

the siege of Przemysl. On October 21st the Ger- 
mans were only seven miles from Warsaw, and Berlin 
prepared to celebrate. 

But the Russians had a real commander, the Grand 
Duke Nicholas, who knew how to attack as well as 
to retreat. He had new armies ready and threw a 
force directly on the flank of the advancing Germans 
and forced them back nearly to the frontier. Quickly 
reforming his armies he made new attacks against the 
enemy's weakest place, the Austrian front, and once 
more swept all before him. By November 12th the 
Russians were once more investing the unfortunate 
city of Przemysl, were progressing far to the west of 
it and were advancing once more in the north. 

And now German generalship and German railways 
clashed to the death with Russian numbers. The con- 
flict had not yet settled into the stationary trench war- 
fare. There were wide movements of troops and 
space for strategy. Von Hindenburg's new attempt 
was to do what every general longs to accomplish, 
to surround an enemy army. The battle line at Lodz, 
southwest of Warsaw, was strongly held by both sides. 
The Germans attacked there, and while doing so an- 
other army that had been gathered by means of the 
many railways was brought down from the north onto 
the flank and rear of the Russians. An immense cap- 
ture was in prospect and the German capital eagerly 
awaited the final news. The Russians resisted des- 
perately, the Germans attacked ferociously. The 
Grand Duke Nicholas, however, had still more re- 
serves, and a strong force of these were thrown against 
the rear of the enemy army that had slipped around 
the Russians at Lodz. The Grand Duke had per- 
formed a feat perhaps new to strategy: he had en- 
veloped the enveloping army. The four distinct forces 
resembled a double sandwich. The fight that followed 
this situation is described as the most horrible of the 
manv battles of the war, where foes clinched to the 



40 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

death and gave no quarter. The German army was 
now itself in danger of destruction, but it literally 
hacked itself out of the trap with a loss of nearly half 
the force. Only the wreck of an army escaped. Von 
Hindenburg nearly lost his laurels in the Battle of 
Lodz. 

The result of this battle was the defeat of the Ger- 
man hopes of relieving the Austrians, since it did not 
compel the Russians to retreat from Galicia. Another 
result was that, for the first time, a continuous front 
from the Baltic to the Carpathians was formed, and 
the armies dug themselves in. 

The situation was indeed serious to the Central 
Powers. Russian numbers, generalship, equipment 
had proved far more effective than had been dreamed. 
But the Germans made a supreme effort to save the 
Austrians from collapse. Attacking this time in Ga- 
licia, they were successful in defeating the Russians 
as they were about to besiege Cracow. The defeat 
forced the Slavs back fifty-five miles, but it did not 
shake their hold on Przemysl, which they continued 
to invest through the winter and until March 22d, 
when it surrendered. 

The Russian campaign continued through the 
winter, a mild season making movements possible. 
For the fourth time in five months a Russian army 
penetrated East Prussia, only to meet with the same 
fate as before. In Eastern Galicia and in Bukowina 
they suffered reverses and some loss of occupied terri- 
tory. But there were no major battles during these 
months. 

Austrian forces had promptly invaded Serbia at 
the outbreak of war. Belgrade, across the Danube 
from Austria, was bombarded and occupied. A rash 
attempt to advance met with defeat at the hands of. 
the Serbs. There were other engagements, with vary- 
ing fortunes. Then, early in December, the Serbs 
inflicted a severe defeat upon the Austrians, taking 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 41 

many prisoners and actually driving them out of the 
country; even Belgrade was evacuated. 

Turkey came into the war in October. In recent 
years' Turkey had come under the influence of Ger- 
many. German officers trained the new Turkish 
army. Germany obtained concessions to build the 
great railway, the Bagdad line. High officials were 
bought by German gold, were ready to do Germany's 
bidding. The Kaiser had posed as a friend of the 
Mohammedans; by the Turkish populace he was 
considered a convert. 

When the Great War began, Turkey waited to see 
which way the wind blew. Two German warships, 
in the Mediterranean at the outbreak of war, escaped 
through the Dardanelles and made certain the entry 
of Turkey. So when German armies seemed to be 
sweeping the enemy from the map, Turkey began 
war by bombarding a Russian port in the Black Sea. 
Mutual declarations of war followed. 

Turkey was a vital factor in Germany's plans of 
conquest. It would be Turkish armies, led by Ger- 
mans, that should seize the Suez Canal and drive the 
British from Egypt, and should also drive the Russians 
north of the Caucasus Mountains. This latter cam- 
paign was undertaken first; a large Turkish army 
penetrated far into the mountain wilds. This army 
met prompt disaster, an entire corps being captured 
or destroyed. It was not until December that Brit- 
ish aeroplanes descried the approach to the Suez Canal 
of a Turkish army. But there was no clash of mo- 
ment until the following year. 



42 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 



CHAPTER VI. 

MILITARY AND NAVAL STATIONS DURING THE 
FIRST WINTER. 

The actual fighting on the western front during the 
winter was of minor character. After the failure of 
the Germans to break through to Calais, no extensive 
campaigns were undertaken. But local fighting, often 
of the fiercest nature, was constant. A division com- 
mander coveted an enemy trench, or a regiment craved 
revenge for losses ; a mile or so of the line was under 
enfilade from a dominating hill, the capture of which 
was attempted; raids were made for prisoners and 
information; all these kept the battle lines active and 
swelled the casualty lists. A few severe battles oc- 
curred during January. The French attacked in 
Alsace, gaining considerable ground. About the same 
time a promising attack by JorTre's troops along the 
Aisne was frustrated by a flood. 

All the combatants waited for spring. It was be- 
lieved that other nations would join the alliance against 
the Central Powers. Italy w r as one of these. After 
the outbreak of war, Italy terminated her alliance with 
Germany and Austria, and had since been preparing 
to ally herself with France and England. Bulgaria, 
Roumania, and Greece also were thought to be on 
the point of entering the contest against Germany. 
These were the chief reasons for the hopes entertained 
by the Allies of defeating Germany during 1915. 

Both sides saw in the situation promise of victory, 
and both sides had apparent reason for this belief. 
On the face of it, the decision was still to be made; 
the Battle of the Marne was too recent to be seen in 
perspective and it was not then regarded as the de- 
cisive victory. The Allied nations and the United 
States believed the defeat of Germany to be inevitable. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 43 

But the German people did not so see it. The Ger- 
man army boasted of great victories. Their lines 
were held fast in enemy territory. The whole nation 
was united under trained leadership and every man 
was performing some specific task. With so great 
and powerful a nation united, all with a will to victory, 
ultimate triumph, to the German people, seemed as 
certain as day and night. The coming campaign 
promised to fulfill the great dream, promised to give 
complete victory, delayed, but none the less sweet. 

The German leaders may not have shared the opti- 
mism that undoubtedly inspired the nation as a whole. 
They had certain problems to solve : the plan to win 
the war in a few weeks had failed; neither France 
nor Russia had been beaten down. And England 
was coming on. England and Russia constituted the 
two chief problems. England, it was recognized, 
would now bend every energy to defeat Germany. 
To hearten their people, the German government 
created the belief that they were fighting for self- 
preservation against a deliberate attempt of England 
and Russia to destroy their nation. And the Germans 
for three years fought on in this belief. 

But England was not ready. Germany's hope of 
yictory still lay in the possibility of destroying either 
France or Russia before British millions should arrive 
on the battle line. There is no question but that, to 
the Kaiser and his aides, the situation was serious. 
But they had stupendous visible results from the first 
campaign, results so brilliant that they blinded the 
people to the fact that they were not the prizes for 
which the conflict was begun. Germany had captured 
nearly six hundred thousand enemy soldiers; more 
than half were Russians, two hundred and twenty 
thousand were French. There were British prisoners 
to a number equal to the army England had main- 
tained in America during the Revolution. Belgian 
prisoners numbered nearly forty thousand. The fu- 



44 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

ture of Germany seemed assured. The check they 
had suffered was minimized and served only to in- 
crease their efforts. 

To France the situation was somber. She had 
lost heavily during the opening campaign, a large part 
of the flower of her army had been swallowed up. 
The list of casualties filled nearly every home with 
mourning. The utmost bravery of her troops and 
all the skill of her generals had achieved only a check 
of the enemy; he had not been driven off her soil. 

France had done her utmost almost from the first. 
Her affairs were so ordered that the full military 
strength was in the field in a few weeks. Two million, 
men were in battle lines, with enough of a reserve 
to maintain that strength. Every shop and factory, 
every trade and calling, nearly every profession, had 
been drained at once of all the eligible men. France 
could not at any future time increase her strength, 
could only face, instead, a gradual weakening, slow 
but certain. France had not the colonies, as England 
had, to supply first-class soldiers; although more than 
three hundred thousand came later from her North 
'African possessions, a majority of whom were used 
elsewhere than in the front-line trenches. The task 
of France was to hold fast until England should be 
able to throw at lea^t a million soldiers into line. 

The greatest asset of France was her large number, 
many thousands, of highly trained officers. Germany 
had no advantage in this respect; if anything, the 
French, from lieutenant to general, had better training ; 
certainly they showed greater military genius. The 
British were handicapped seriously throughout the war 
by the scarcity of efficient officers. The French staff 
never failed at any critical moment. It was an im- 
portant factor in the war. 

England was buckling to her great task. r N large 
number of Britons still thought that a short campaign 
in 191 5 would win the war, but the wiser and better 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 45 

informed foresaw a long struggle with the end some- 
where in the dim future. Lord Kitchener declared 
the war would last three years at least ; which, in view 
of the terrible casualties and the enormous cost, seemed 
to most men impossible. He also said the war would 
begin in May, 1915; meaning that the new British 
army would then be ready to enter the fight. Eng- 
land's professional army, none better in the world, 
was thrown as a whole into the conflict in August 
and September, 19 14, and it had been largely consumed 
at Mons, at the Marne, the Aisne, and Ypres. By Feb- 
ruary 1st there were one hundred and four thousand 
casualties, or a larger number than composed the first 
British army in Belgium. Drafts from India and the 
other colonies were sufficient only to maintain a 
strength of one hundred and fifty thousand or more. 

But England planned a far greater force than that. 
Kitchener called for two million men. One million 
and a quarter were in camp by winter, undergoing a 
severe course of training that would fit them for the 
trenches by spring. The colonies were making equal 
efforts. A little more than two months after the 
war began, the first Canadian soldiers landed in Eng- 
land. This first contingent of thirty thousand men 
were convoyed safely across the Atlantic. By winter, 
more than one hundred thousand Canadians were in 
training, at home and abroad. Australian plans and 
results were commensurate with her population and 
heritage. South Africa undertook to handle Eng- 
land's affairs on that continent, including the conquest 
of two large German colonies and the suppression of 
a Boer rebellion. Truly, the Germans were facing 
still another miscalculation. They had held that Eng- 
land's colonies neither could nor would aid her in war. 

But though Britain's military strength was undevel- 
oped, her other arm was at full strength and in instant 
readiness. The British navy and the French army 
beat the Germans. Many other factors were needed 



46 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

to complete the task, but these two were vital. And 
of the two, the British navy was the more important. 
With it, England alone could have fought the Ger- 
mans even as she fought Napoleon. 

During the early months, the navy was seldom men- 
tioned in the news except when it suffered losses. Its 
silent work was by the outside world lost sight of in 
the more dazzling display of millions of soldiers march- 
ing and fighting. But, in a moment, almost, the navy 
performed the one task that ultimately defeated Ger- 
many; it closed the seas to the enemy. Germany had 
a navy only second in strength, but it was doomed to 
remain in hiding or else to come out to certain de- 
struction. When war began, every German merchant 
ship that did not gain a home or a neutral port was 
captured by the British navy. In a few weeks there 
were six hundred and forty-five German ships in 
neutral ports all over the world. Hundreds were 
captured. Germany's foreign commerce disappeared 
from the waters of the globe by reason of the might 
of the British navy. 

The other side of the navy's appointed task was 
performed equally well. The supplies of the whole 
world, outside of enemy countries, were kept available 
to England and her Allies. Their foreign commerce, 
continued with only such interruption as was unavoid- 
able. The United States could not have sold a dollar's 
worth of goods to Europe, but for the English navy. 
The immensity of the supplies sent overseas is only 
hinted at in the single fact of Canada's contribution 
of sixty million shells, and twenty-five hundred aero-, 
planes. And Canada was not a manufacturing 
country. Such incidentals as barbed wire was bought 
by the millions of dollars worth from the United 
States, while horses, mules, provisions, motors and; 
other necessaries amounted to the hundreds of mil- 
lions, and while there were some losses by submarines,- 
mos f of this material reached its destination safely. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 47 

But for her navy, England could not have availed 
herself of the military aid — more than a million sol- 
diers ultimately — of her colonies. How well the navy 
looked after this end of its work is shown by the fact 
that, of twenty-two million soldiers convoyed from 
the various fronts, only four thousand three hundred 
and ninety-one were lost at sea. During the first 
year of the war British warships convoyed sixty troop- 
ships from Australia, fifty from India, and forty from 
Canada. 

Britain kept guard on the sea lanes of the world 
only at a great cost, both of ships and lives. The 
Germans had one weapon with which they could strike 
unseen at the proud strength of the British navy, a 
weapon which they believed would ultimately destroy 
it. The war was not many days old before sub- 
marines were sinking an occasional patrol boat. Then, 
on September 22d, one U-boat sank three British 
cruisers, causing a loss of 1,450 men. In October, 
the Audacious, a modern dreadnaught, was sunk, and 
on New Year's Day, the Formidable, with a loss of 
six hundred men, was sunk in the English Channel. 
The sensation caused by these and other sea losses 
was far greater than was caused by any similar loss 
on land. In the eyes of the world it implied un- 
known but tremendous eventualities ; affecting greatly, 
or perhaps destroying, British naval supremacy, and 
suggesting the end of the empire and the doom of the 
battleship. The German people magnified these inci- 
dents into decisive victories. But the grip of Britain 
was not loosened by these losses, nor would it have 
been weakened had five times as many ships been sunk. 

The navy settled itself into the work that was to 
continue for years, of a long distance blockade, ever 
watchful for the coming out of the German fleet. 
But it was not all passive service. On August 24th 
a British squadron raided Heligoland and sank several 
German warships. On November 1st, on the far off 



48 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

coast of Chili, three old British vessels were sunk by 
the only German fleet on the high seas. Once more 
the world was agog over the possibility of Britain's 
defeat. But the German triumph was short-lived. 
A fleet of swift cruisers under Admiral Sturdee was 
dispatched from English w r aters and on December 8th, 
near the Falkland Islands, the German fleet was de- 
stroyed, only one ship, the Dresden, escaping for the 
moment. 

The Germans, maddened at losing access to the 
sea, left no means untried to inflict damage upon 
England. In December, a squadron slipped through 
the mists of the North Sea and bombarded three towns 
on the east coast of England, killing a number of 
civilians. A second raid was made soon afterward, 
the attacking vessels again eluding the British patrol. 
But the Germans lacked strategy. They made a third 
attempt in the same region and were intercepted by 
the British battle cruisers of Admiral Beatty. In this, 
the first naval battle between modern ships of equal 
fighting power at a range up to eight miles, the Ger- 
mans lost one of their finest cruisers, the Bliichcr. 
Others of their vessels were damaged. The British 
lost no vessels and suffered few casualties. The Ger- 
mans risked no more of their first-class ships in their 
future raids on the English coast. 

The net result of the ocean warfare to the end of 
winter was that England lost sixteen warships and 
Germany twenty ; very small vessels not counted. In 
February, the Germans declared a submarine blockade 
of the British Isles and the British navy found its 
task doubled. 

The smaller German colonies had fallen without 
resistance to the English navy. Australia's navy was 
largely instrumental in the conquest of the German 
island possessions in the Pacific; and it was an Aus- 
tralian cruiser that terminated the destructive career 
of Germany's most famous raider, the Emdcn. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 49 

The United States felt a touch of the reality of war 
during the first winter. Widespread industrial de- 
pression, together with a great increase in the price 
of the necessities of life, brought some of the hard- 
ship of war without any of its glory. A closer touch 
was gained in the relief work undertaken in the war- 
ravaged countries, particularly in Belgium. Large 
sums of money were raised, food and clothing were 
sent to the homeless and hungry ones. England and 
France, however, supplied the great bulk of the relief. 

American opinion and sympathy had, at the begin- 
ning of war, instinctively aligned itself on the side of 
England and France. The German-Americans nat- 
urally were favorably inclined to their mother country, 
but most others hoped to see Germany beaten. The 
destruction and pillage in France and Belgium con- 
firmed American hostility to the vandals. 

Belgium and northern France were indeed in sad 
plight. In the grip of a ruthless conqueror, they were 
reduced from ease and plenty to the lowest essentials 
of life, scanty food and wretched shelter. The 
enormous number of three hundred and fifty thou- 
sand homes were destroyed in northern France alone. 
All the valuable machinery of the occupied sections of 
both countries was appropriated by the Germans, who 
systematically removed everything of industrial value 
to their own country. In addition to ravaging, the 
Germans levied tribute upon the French and Belgians ; 
collecting, by persuasion and force, the cost of occupa- 
tion. The Belgian people remaining in their homes 
paid in cash eight to twelve million dollars monthly 
throughout the war. 



50 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE WEST FRONT IN I915. 

During the first half of 191 5 the French held by 
far the greatest part of the battle line, five hundred 
and forty-four miles, whereas the British held only 
thirty-one, and the Belgians seventeen miles. This 
length of line, occupied by opposing forces, with men 
a few feet or yards apart and men in reserve, reveals 
the magnitude of this war contrasted with all other 
conflicts. The newly recruited British troops began 
to arrive behind the lines late in the winter, to receive 
their final training within sound of the guns. But 
these new forces could as yet be organized only as 
battalions and brigades, not as armies or even corps, 
since hardly a man of them had had any previous 
training. 

The opening gun of the new campaign season was 
fired by the French in the Champagne region where 
they made an attack in February. It resulted only in 
casualties and prisoners. During the same month the 
Germans advanced about four miles on a thirteen-mile 
front in the Vosges Mountains. On March 9th the 
British took their first step toward Germany. In a 
sudden attack, centering in the village of Neuve 
Chapelle, they crashed forward about a mile on a front 
a little less than four miles long. The attack was 
preceded by thirty-five minutes of intense artillery 
fire, during which time the British used nearly as 
much ammunition as during the whole Boer War. The 
hurricane fire pulverized the enemy trenches and partly 
destroyed the barbed wire defenses. The advance of 
the infantry was gallantly made and the first line 
of German trenches occupied. There the success 
ended. Through poor staff work, proper supports 
were not given, guns were not brought up, and while 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 5 1 

the British clung to the captured ground, it was at 
high cost. More than thirteen thousand casualties 
was the price of the few square miles gained. The 
attack was on too small a scale to produce any definite 
results. The British were jubilant, however, over the 
success of their new artillery. The trenches were 
only one hundred yards apart in places, yet guns four 
miles behind the lines accurately deluged the enemy's 
front trenches. Part of the artillery in action was 
French. 

There was a general belief at this time in Germany's 
military weakness. The prophets foresaw a steady 
decline of strength, the result of which would be a 
callapse somewhere on the long front in Belgium or 
France. The million and more German casualties 
had drained the reserves, it was thought, and the 
downfall was imminent. The real truth of the whole 
German nation in arms, of almost inexhaustible num- 
bers, had not yet penerated the Anglo-French mind. 
It needed another campaign to awaken England to 
the immensity of the task. 

Meanwhile, the Entente forces were gathering 
strength; sixty thousand Canadians were across the 
Atlantic, half of whom had just moved into the battle 
trenches. On April 21st, it was announced that seven 
hundred and fifty thousand British troops were in 
France. Britain enjoyed the peace of mind of duty 
performed, a state of bliss that was short-lived; for 
on the following day, a great German storm beat upon 
the Allied lines, imperiling the entire northern wing. 
The Germans had again done the unexpected; they 
had attacked when it was assumed that they would 
not be able to maintain a successful defensive. 

The second Battle of Ypres was as perilous to the 
British and French as the first had been ; indeed, their 
lines were actually broken, but the Germans failed to 
profit by it. The British still occupied a salient at 
Ypres, although the attack of the previous autumn 



52 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

had pushed them back somewhat. The Canadians 
held the right flank of the British lines; next to them 
was a corps of P>ench Colonial troops. On the morn- 
ing of April 22d these African troops peered over the 
tops of their trenches, watching curiously a yellowish- 
white vapor that came drifting with the breeze from 
the German lines. The cloud came nearer, harmless 
in appearance, but when the first whiffs of it drifted 
across the French lines, men gasped in sudden agony, 
clutched their throats, fell in contortions or died where 
they stood. It was the inauguration of poison gas. 

The use of gas was forbidden by an agreement en- 
tered into by the nations of Europe and America. The 
adoption of it by the Germans was nothing less than 
a tremendous ghastly crime, staining the honor of the 
German army, degrading the soul of German science. 
Adopted for the purpose of gaining an important mili- 
tary success by means of the surprise and consequent 
confusion it would cause, it is the great irony of the 
war that the Germans gained no advantage from it. 
That they did not succeed is due to British and Cana- 
dian valor. 

When the nature of the cloud was understood by 
the French colonial troops, they were utterly routed; 
those that were not suffocated or taken prisoner fled 
in disorder and could not be rallied that day. This 
left a five mile gap in which there were no troops 
whatever to oppose a German advance. The Cana- 
dians were left with their flank in the air, in danger 
of an attack from three sides. These soldiers from 
overseas had never before faced the enemy, yet they 
did not falter. The gas had not been heavy enough 
on their front to cause many casualties, but they had 
a taste of what it meant and they were fired with a 
battle rage such as a year of campaigning could not 
have produced. The actions of the Canadians on the 
first day were a marvel of strategy and bravery. In- 
stead of retreating, which would have saved their force, 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 53 

but would also have opened the way to Ypres and 
perhaps to Calais, they held their ground, extended 
their lines to close as much of the gap as possible, and 
actually advanced in places. The very audacity of 
it convinced the Germans that the Canadians had 
strong reinforcements behind them, and they failed 
to pour through the open gap their gas had made. 
But the Canadians had no reserve. Notwithstanding 
all the hundreds of thousands of British troops in 
France, there were no reserves immediately available. 
The Canadians held their thinning lines throughout 
the day, while the commanders frantically strove to 
collect enough soldiers to fill the gap. During the 
night the English line was withdrawn about a mile. 
The following day, the Germans pressed their attack, 
now conscious of the situation. But a line of troops 
had been thrown across the open doorway, and al- 
though they made repeated assaults in great force, 
the Germans could not break through. The rifles of 
the Canadians almost alone opposed the enemy, but 
they were enough. Again the bluff of the previous 
day was made, the British line advancing slightly 
when there were scarcely enough troops to make a 
continuous line. 

On the third day of the battle the Canadians had 
to face the full strength of a gas cloud, but they held 
on, many dying where they stood, others rendered 
incapable of further fighting. The Canadians were 
withdrawn from the front lines on this day and Brit- 
ish divisions took their place. They had suffered 
heavily by reason of their courage; of the thirty thou- 
sand Canadians in France, fully a fourth were killed 
or wounded in the three days' fighting. 

The intensity of the battle continued for five days, 
while desultory attack continued for a month longer. 
The Germans were unwilling to confess defeat. They 
made a great gas attack on May 5th and a supreme 
assault on May 24th. But the British and French 



54 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

had learned to meet the new conditions and they held 
the enemy. The net results of the great battle were 
that the Germans advanced two more miles on the 
road to Ypres and took several thousand French 
Colonial prisoners, also about sixteen hundred Brit- 
ish and Canadian captives. The estimated casualties 
for friend and foe were one hundred thousand. 

To the British public, these two battles were an 
awakening to the fact that all was not going well. 
There came stories of insufficient ammunition, of the 
need to save shells for weeks and months in order that 
enough reserves be accumulated for a single battle; 
stories also that told of the forced use of ineffective 
shrapnel where "high explosives" were needed. The 
clamor of the newspapers, especially NorthclifrYs jour- 
nals, resulted in a shake-up of the powers responsible. 
Lloyd George became director of munitions, taking 
that much of the burden from the shoulders of Lord 
Kitchener, and his measures in time removed the 
cause for complaint, although months were to pass 
before the British could match the Germans gun for 
gun. 

Ammunition from overseas was just beginning to 
arrive, and the German papers proclaimed the "killing 
of their soldiers by American bullets." On May 7th, 
a submarine sank the giant steamer, Lusitania, re- 
ported to be laden with munitions from America. 
In addition to the uproar caused by the death of more 
than one hundred Americans, besides the thousand 
and more other noncombatants, the question of war 
supplies from the United States' was widely discussed. 
The Germans exerted every public and secret agency 
to stop the flow of American shells and guns to 
European battlefields. Their campaigns for this pur- 
pose were far-reaching. Under the guise of a neu- 
trality league, they attempted to enlist the humani- 
tarian sentiment of the American people in a move- 
ment to stop the export of war supplies. These 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 55 

petitions went to every corner of the United States, 
were found in the farm homes of Maine, Texas, and 
Oregon. Germany was not without apologists and 
defenders in the United States, who, not successful 
in regaining for her the friendship of America, were 
able to stir up more or less hostility toward Britain, 
a feeling Britain herself made possible by the search 
of mails and seizure of cargoes. But not all their 
"humane'' appeals, nor the frenzy of pro-German 
papers, nor the ethics of pacifists, sufficed to halt the 
sale of munitions. 

There was little fighting of importance during the 
summer. About the same time as the Battle of Ypres, 
the French made a great attempt to cut off the St. 
Mihiel salient, which was a menace to Verdun. But 
the Germans were too well entrenched, too well sup- 
plied with men and munitions, to be dislodged by the 
means the French at that date could command. The 
taking of the St. Mihiel salient had to wait for another 
day more than three years later. In May, Foch made 
an attack near Arras. He was supported by British 
troops, but the ammunition of the latter became ex- 
hausted and the attack came to nothing. Later in 
the same month, the British carried two miles of 
trenches at La Bassee. In June, they repelled a strong 
attack at Hooge, in the Ypres region, where the Ger- 
mans were on the ridge and the British in the low- 
lands. From June 20th to July 15th, the German 
Crown Prince made heavy assaults on the Argonne 
front, taking some prisoners and territory, but achiev- 
ing nothing of importance. The city and cathedral 
of Rheims were shelled intermittently, and ruins were 
made more desolate. All through the summer months, 
when the Russians were being battered by the com- 
bined strength of Germany and Austria, the Allies on 
the western front, were, for lack of ammunition for 
the heavy guns, practically inactive. The fighting had 
demonstrated that the Germans could not be beaten 



56 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

without a tremendous expenditure of men and shells. 
The shells were as vital as the men; and attack un- 
aided by artillery resulted only in the sacrifice of 
soldiers. 

In September, the time arrived when the British 
and French felt themselves strong enough in resources 
to undertake the most ambitious campaign since the 
deadlock began. The great attack was made in two 
places : In Champagne, east of Rheims, the French 
alone assaulted ; in the north, where the British line 
joined that of the French, joint attack was made. 
The British campaign is known as the Battle of Loos, 
from a town in the scope of the action. It is a tale 
of great hopes and of disappointment. 

The aim of Sir John French and General Foch, 
who were in command of their respective forces, was 
to break the German line and advance at least to the 
city of Lens, the center of the^richest coal fields of 
France. The British developed to a greater degree 
the method used at Nenve Chapelle, that of intense 
artillery preparation. Instead of a half hour of bom- 
bardment, as at the former battle, the British guns 
were worked day and night for four days before the 
attack. With explosions of shells resembling the 
rapid beating of a drum, with an intensity of fire such 
as the war had not yet seen, the assailants and the 
defenders awaited the hour. On the morning of 
September 25th, the bombardment halting on the in- 
stant, the British and French left their trenches. As 
in many other battles, the first advance was easily 
made; trenches had been destroyed, barbed wire cut. 
The troops swept on past the limit set for them. Only 
in the north the advance was held up by uncut wire, 
and this left the successful units subject to a deadly 
fire from their flank. A force of Scottish troops 
pressed on in spite of losses, and actually won their 
way through the last system of trenches. There they 
clung for a day and a night; strong reinforcements 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 57 

might have cut the line and gained a big victory, but 
no reinforcements at all went to the aid of the Scots. 
Once more the bravery of British soldiers was set at 
naught by the incapacity of British high command. 

The new British troops, "the first hundred thou- 
sand," were first used in this battle, and they abun- 
dantly proved their worth. But the British staff had 
not yet found itself, had not fused with its task. To 
offset a loss of fifty thousand men, a huge loss, when 
it is considered that only seventy thousand took part 
in the first advance, there were only nominal gains, 
a few lines of demolished trenches, a few thousand 
prisoners. The greatest benefit to the British were 
the lessons they learned, and these lessons were put 
to good use. 

General Foch's troops, attacking simultaneously, 
won a part of Vimy Ridge, which was to be lost and 
retaken in other battles. They could not safely ad- 
vance beyond the British, lest their flank be exposed, 
and the opportunity to capture Lens was lost. 

Meanwhile the French had been more successful 
in their Champagne attack, also made on the same 
day. Twenty-five thousand prisoners and an advance 
of a few miles rewarded their efforts. On this, as 
on most other occasions on the west front, the only 
gains of consequence were won during the first day 
of attack. Thereafter it was a continuous struggle 
of attack, counter attack and defense, in which both 
sides lost heavily without gaining anything of value. 

The several assaults made on the German lines dur- 
ing the year proved that the Allies had not yet solved 
the problem of breaking them. On each occasion the 
advance had been almost instantly checked after the 
first rush, and the effort to push on only sacrificed 
troops uselessly. From this fact, the opinion grew 
and became widespread that neither side could break 
through the other's defense, that the war would con- 
tinue in deadlock and end likewise. The time came 



58 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

when the Germans adopted this notion for their own 
purposes. 

But the Entente Allies were not willing to concede 
defeat. Joffre spoke of his policy as one of nibbling. 
The British talked of the "Big Push" that was to 
come. Certainly, in the bravery and dash of the 
British volunteers there was hope of greater success 
when artillery, munitions and leadership should attain 
as high a standard; while on the French side there 
was readiness to undertake a general offensive when- 
ever an opportunity and cooperation would be offered. 

The only noteworthy events during the rest of the 
year were the retirement of Sir John French from 
the British command, and the accession of Sir Douglas 
Haig, who had commanded one of the two first corps 
landing in France at the beginning of the war ; and the 
constant growth of the British and colonial forces. 
By the end of the year, there were one hundred and 
twenty thousand Canadians in England and France. 
In the autumn the British took over more of the battle 
line, increasing their front from thirty-one to fifty 
miles. About this time, also, the native Indian troops 
were withdrawn, and Europe saw them no more. 

Christmas, 191 5, found the armies on practically 
the same lines as they had occupied the previous holi- 
days; a few rods or a mile advance here, a mile or 
so lost there. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

RUSSIAN DEFEAT. 

Of all the problems facing Germany and Austria- 
Hungary at the beginning of 191 5, that of Russia 
was the most pressing. There was absolute certainty 
that Austria could not endure such another campaign 
as that of the previous autumn, when she was ever on 
the brink of complete disaster, when prisoners and cas- 
ualties mounted by the hundred thousand. Not even 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 59 

Germany could contemplate without dread another 
series of battles such as she had fought on the Russian 
front, when the Slav armies were no sooner driven 
back at one place than they advanced elsewhere. 
There was the utmost need for a sweeping victory 
over the Russians, a victory that should put Russia 
out of the war, if possible, or, at the very least, defeat 
her so decisively that Austria would no longer be in 
danger. 

Russia quickly made it evident that she would again 
push the fighting. In February her armies once more 
raided East Prussia, only to lose almost fifty thousand 
prisoners. Then in March, after the fall of Przemysl, 
she made a general advance in Galicia, more than mak- 
ing up her losses in the north ; seventy thousand Aus- 
trians, in addition to the large garrison of Przemysl, 
were taken prisoners. Once more the Russians were 
reaching for the passes of the Carparthians, as a step 
toward the plains of Hungary. 

If the Germans were faced by the necessity of de- 
feating Russia, there was also the belief, almost the 
assurance, that it was possible of accomplishment. 
There was no real hope of such a feat against the 
enemies on the west, but conditions in the east were 
different. The battles of the previous year had 
demonstrated that the Germans could mobilize quickly 
and secretly against any point on the Russian front, 
and that under these conditions they could break 
through and advance before the Russians, with their 
lack of railways, could bring up reserves. Railways, 
thus far, had beaten numbers. The German attacks 
of the previous year had lacked the decisive blow; 
they had made no fewer then seven general advances 
in 19 1 4, but each time the Russians rebounded. 

To the Germans the problem was plain, and there 
remained only to find the means to cope with it. All 
through the winter and early spring there were earnest 
consultations among the general staff, first to decide 



60 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

on a plan, then to gather the means to carry it out. 
Thousands of officers from field marshals to lieutenants 
busied themselves with their share of the gigantic prep- 
arations; more guns had to be provided, great stores 
of ammunition set aside, troops had to be assembled, 
and each unit assigned to a definite place in the cam- 
paign. The German high command was profiting 
by its mistakes of the previous year; it was determined 
to make but one more "Russian campaign, and to make 
that one decisive. 

A vital part of the German preparations was going 
on behind the Russian lines. Hundreds of spies were, 
at work hampering the military efforts of the foe; 
ammunition factories were blown up, transportation 
was demoralized; practically every army movement 
was known to the German command. 

The month of May, 191 5, was a month of spec- 
tacular events. It saw the sinking of the Lusitania, 
the entry of Italy into the war, and the beginning of 
Russian downfall. On May 2d the Germans began 
their campaign. A commander hitherto unknown to 
the public, General Mackensen, was in command of a 
mighty force of Germans and Austrians. Selecting 
a comparatively narrow front on the Donajec River in 
Western Galicia, he concentrated five thousand cannon 
and thousands of machine guns and literally blew a 
section of the Russian lines into oblivion. Into this 
gap poured the Teutonic armies that had been carefully 
trained for just these tactics. The rest of the cam- 
paign was a logical sequence of this break. The Ger- 
mans rolled up the enemy; the Russians were unable 
to close the gap. Rivers were no obstacles to the in- 
vaders, and all resistance was brushed aside. The 
Grand Duke Nicholas at once began to withdraw his 
armies, particularly the ones high in the Carpathian 
passes. These were in the greatest danger, since the 
rapid advance of the Germans threatened to cut off 
their retreat. In six days, Hungary was cleared of 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 6l 

Russians, who made good their escape. But so rapid 
was the German advance that in twelve days they had 
recaptured the important city of Jaroslav, and had 
advanced to the banks of the San River, which forms 
a natural barrier in middle Galicia and Poland. 

Now ensued the decisive battle of the campaign. 
If the Russians could hold the river between them and 
the foe, they would retain a great part of their con- 
quest. But if they were forced back from the river, 
all their valor and sacrifice would be in vain, as far 
as territory was concerned. To this critical place 
came the Kaiser himself to inspire his soldiers to fight 
for empire. The crossing was forced on May 18th, 
the German commanders spared neither soldiers nor 
energy in vital moments. All Russian resistance was 
beaten down; the spy had done his work only too 
well. Thousands of Russian soldiers were without 
guns or ammunition, many waited for comrades to fall 
that they might use their rifles. Lacking powder, 
they fought with clubbed rifles or with bayonets. 

On past the San swept the Teutons. On June 2d, 
thirty days from the beginning of the drive, Przemysl 
was retaken; the Russians had lost the prize they 
fought for during six months and had only just suc- 
ceeded in winning. On June 226, the city of Lemberg 
also was recaptured. This marks the close, practically, 
of Mackensen's phase of the campaign. The Russians 
now made their line good, and so quick was their 
recovery from the disaster that General Brusiloff be- 
gan to attack again before many weeks had passed. 
But the Russians had suffered a terrible defeat. They 
had lost men and munitions to such an extent that 
they could not hope to wage an offensive campaign 
during the remainder of that year. The loss in pris- 
oners was tremendous; the Germans claimed to have 
captured more than one hundred thousand for the 
first half of June, alone. 

After their great defeat, the Russian line ran south- 



62 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

ward along a line drawn some miles west of Warsaw 
down to the border of Galicia, where it curved far 
to the east, having been forced back by Mackensen's 
drive. The second phase of the year's campaign was 
not long in beginning. This time it was Hindenburg 
who directed operations, and his attacks, as well 
planned and prepared as Mackensen's, were directed 
against the northern section of the front that had not 
been affected by the Galician defeat. The German 
operations contrast strongly with the British attacks 
during the same year and emphasize the tremendous 
advantage gained by the Central Powers from their 
years of preparation. Instead of assaults on a front 
of a few miles at intervals of months, such as the 
British were confined to, the Germans carried on a ; 
continuous campaign for six months, never lacking the 
necessary guns and shells. 

On July 14th Hindenburg began his attack. His 
first problem was to drive the Russians across the 
Vistula at the points where they were west of the 
river — not a difficult task; and following this to cross 
the river in the face of the enemy's defenses. All 
along the line the Germans assaulted, while at six vital 
points strong spearheads of troops were thrown 
against the foe. The attack was successful at once. 
In a very few days the Russians were behind the Vis- 
tula everywhere except in front of Warsaw. After 
two weeks the Germans began to force passages of the 
river both north and south of Warsaw. This consti- 
tuted a dangerous threat against the Russian armies 
in the Warsaw region. Before the Grand Duke de- 
cided to evacuate Warsaw, the enemy had strong 
forces across the river and was moving forward to 
envelop any troops that ' remained in the net. The 
Russians were reluctant to leave Warsaw. To aban- 
don it would be a heavier blow at their prestige than 
all their defeats thus far. It meant the losing of 
all Poland. From a strictly military point of view, 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 63 

the most serious result of the capture of Warsaw by 
the enemy was the loss of the railroads centering 
there. All railroads met at Warsaw; there was no 
other junction place for hundreds of miles and no 
north and south line along which troops might be 
moved. To transfer an army corps from north to 
south under these conditions, it would have to march 
or else be carried by train many miles eastward to 
a junction point, then westward again. 

But there was a choice between evacuating Warsaw 
or of losing the armies defending it. The strong for- 
tress of Ivangorod to the south had fallen; the Ger- 
mans had crossed the river above and surrounded it. 
The same fate had befallen the other fortified river 
cities. So, on August 4th, when the world thought 
it was too late for the Russians to retreat successfully, 
W T arsaw was evacuated. By dint of hard fighting 
they made good their escape, after the Germans had 
practically proclaimed their capture. The first phase 
of Hindenburg's campaign was over; it had resulted 
in a great success, even though the main Russian 
armies had escaped. 

The second phase w r as not long in beginning. Less 
than two weeks after the capture of Warsaw, the 
Germans began their assault on the second Russian 
line. This line was far to the east of the Vistula, 
and was based on several strongly fortified cities, 
among them, Kovon and Brest-Litovsk. In less than 
ten days more, the Germans had occupied the entire 
system of defenses; the Russians seemed to be unable 
to hold any line whatever. In Galicia, Mackensen 
had resumed his advance and was pushing back the 
Russians, and keeping step with Hindenburg. 

In losing their second line, the Russians lost their 
last natural or prepared barrier to the enemy's advance. 
They were thrown back into the wide flat regions 
of Courland, into the great marshes of Pinsk. And 
at last, in September, they came to a halt in a general 



64 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

line running south from Riga, a line that barely 
touched Eastern Galicia. The Germans followed, cap- 
turing the cities of Grodno and Vilna on the way. 

The Russians seemed to have lost nearly all that 
an army or a nation could lose short of complete sur- 
render. The Germans gleefully, the Allies sadly, 
counted out Russia as a combatant. The world was 
prepared to behold the utter dissolution of the Rus- 
sian armies and a triumphant German advance to Mos- 
cow, to Petrograd, or wherever else their plans might 
direct them. 

Late in September, after a brief rest, the German 
armies marched against the new Russian line, with a 
view to the occupation of Riga before winter set in. 
To their utter surprise and to the astonishment of 
the world, they were stopped in their tracks. The 
Russian recuperation was remarkable, considering 
what they had undergone. They had lost close to a 
million prisoners during the year, had suffered cas- 
ualties numbering more than three hundred thousand, 
had lost enough guns of every caliber to supply a 
great part of their armies anew. They had been 
driven far from their defensive positions into the in- 
terior of their country. They were desperately short 
of supplies. Yet they retained their morale, reorgan- 
ized their armies and held the Germans. And it was 
not that the Germans made no further efforts to ad- 
vance. On the contrary, Von Hindenburg made stren- 
uous attempts during several weeks to break through 
to Riga, but not all his men and guns could win a road 
through. By October the German advance was def- 
initely over. 

A most remarkable feature of the Russian cam- 
paigns during their organized warfare was the ability 
and readiness of the Russian armies to attack. The 
German advance had hardly stopped before General 
Brusiloff was moving forward again in Galicia, cap- 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 65 

turing prisoners to the number of a few thousand. 
He was to become better known the following year. 

An inevitable sequel to the Russian defeat was the 
retirement of the Grand Duke Nicholas from the chief 
command, and the assumption of the office by the 
Czar himself. This was done to raise the morale of 
the nation; the actual direction of the armies remained 
with the generals. 

CHAPTER IX. 

turkey; the Dardanelles; italy; the 
balkans, in i915. 

Turkey had not been at war many months before 
it was evident that the frightful specter of a holy war 
— the bugaboo of centuries — would not materialize. 
It was not for want of a will to set it going; nor were 
strenuous efforts to that end lacking. The German 
Kaiser was willing, the Turkish rulers eager, to loose 
the terrors of an Orient-wide religious massacre. 
Here was Turkey's chief value in German eyes — her 
supposed power to unleash the fanaticism of the Mo- 
hammedans. The spiritual head of Islam sounded the 
call, invited all the faithful to rise and slay the Cris- 
tians. But the Mohammedans of India, Persia, Egypt, 
of the French and Italian colonies, failed to respond. 
Not even the Arabs, the Pilgrim Fathers of Islam, 
arose to destroy the infidels. Only in the Turkish Em- 
pire and only against a helpless people was the edict 
obeyed. The Armenians suffered as did no other nation 
in this war. The terrors of unbridled savagery directed 
by scientific civilization descended upon them. In 
hundreds of towns and villages the male inhabitants 
were assembled and shot or sabred , the females turned 
over to the lust of the assassins. Thousands of women 
and children were collected and deported, a great band 
of them were forced to march across the burning 
desert of Mesopotamia. Thousands on this march 



66 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

died of thirst; the few survivors vanished into the 
harems of half-savage Kurds. Out of the mists of 
uncertainty and rumor came the fact that from half 
a million to eight hundred thousand Armenians had 
been massacred. It was Turkey's greatest victory 
during the war. 

The attempt of Turkey to regain her former do- 
minion over Egypt began early in the year. On Jan- 
uary 27th came the first collision with the defenders 
of the Suez Canal. In the German view of conditions, 
England would not be able to defend the canal success- 
fully; her home troops would be occupied elsewhere, 
she would not dare to bring native soldiers from India, 
if indeed these soldiers did not lead in a general up- 
rising. As for Australia — that far-off continent did 
not enter into German calculations. 

The canal and Egypt would have been easy prey, 
if German calculations had been correct. But they 
were far from correct. Native Indian troops not only 
defended the canal but they also fought for the empire 
in the plains of Flanders. In November twenty thou- 
sand Australians landed in Egypt to complete their 
training. They were followed by larger forces, by 
New Zealanders, all men accustomed to a degree of 
tropical heat. And when, on February 3d, the Turks 
made their first serious attempt to cross from Asia to 
Africa, they were repelled after a short, hard battle. 
Another attempt in March met a like result. What 
the Germans had proclaimed as the vulnerable spot of 
the British Empire proved to be invulnerable to such 
forces as they were able to send against it. 

In February occurred an event that caught the 
world's imagination and aroused its interest as hardly 
any other phase of the war had done; a British fleet 
attacked the forts of the Dardanelles. There was 
hardly a nation in the world but was concerned vitally 
in the outcome. To all the peoples of eastern Europe 
and western Asia, British success meant the disappear- 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 67 

ance of the Turk as a governing force; to Turkey, it 
meant the end of her diminishing empire in Europe; 
to Germany, it meant the severance at the vital point 
of her prospective dominion. To Russia it meant 
economic freedom, access to the warm seas, a cen- 
turies-old dream realized. For England and France 
had agreed that Russia should have a voice in the dis- 
posal of Constantinople, as the price of continuing the 
war against Germany. 

It was largely in Russia's behalf that the attack was 
made. It was vitally necessary to supply her with 
munitions, the lack of which was to prove so fatal. 
Another element that influenced the French and Eng- 
lish to make the attack was that, if successful, it would 
almost surely bring in Bulgaria, Greece, and Rou- 
mania as allies. In 191 5, the Dardanelles seemed the 
shortest road to victory. 

The Anglo-Saxon and Latin peoples took it for 
granted that the attack would succeed. Turkey, as 
an antagonist, was almost despised, so poor w r as her 
military record of the last century. But the world 
did not take into consideration German leadership; it 
was in leaders and in supplies that Turkey had always 
been found wanting; the Turkish soldier did not lack 
bravery. 

The Dardanelles or Hellespont has played its part 
in history since the days before history was written. 
This narrow channel, severing Europe from Asia, con- 
necting the inland seas and waterways with the Medi- 
terranean and the ocean, has been the prize of many 
a war, from the siege of Troy to the present day. 
Turkey, in command of the Bosphorus and the Dar- 
danelles, sat upon the most favored spot on earth, 
from which the emperors and sultans of centuries had 
ruled a great part of the known world. 

On Febraury 19th a fleet composed of English and 
French battleships began a- bombardment of the forts 



68 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

on the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula. It was contin- 
ued for some days, the Queen Elizabeth, Britain's 
newest dreadnaught, joining the assault. The old 
forts at the entrance to the straights were quickly 
demolished, but modern fortifications hidden in a 
welter of hills some miles up remained. These de- 
fenses commanded the narrows, where the channel 
is only two or three miles wide. By the end of the 
first week in March, the fleet had advanced a few 
miles up stream. Progress was slow, as the waters 
had to be swept for mines. Then on March 19th, 
just a month after the beginning of the attack, float- 
ing mines sank three battleships, two British and one 
French. The attack was promptly abandoned for a 
time, since it was impossible to break through as long 
as the Turks controlled the narrows, for they could 
send scores of mines against the fleet. Later, there 
appeared rumors to the effect that the Turkish forts 
had exhausted their ammunition and that if the fleet 
had persevered it could have gained a passage. This 
report bore all the earmarks of German propaganda. 
The Germans, with their careful efficiency, would be 
certain to provide ample defense for so important a 
place. 

The British were not ready to abandon the attempt, 
and they now organized a joint attack by land and 
sea. There were immense difficulties in the way of 
such a campaign. The troops must be brought by sea 
and landed on a hostile shore in the face of the enemy. 
There was no base of supplies nearer than five hundred 
miles. Yet the military authorities ordained the at- 
tempt. First and last, it was largely a British effort, 
the French contingent being small. Joffre would not 
spare any of his men from France. 

In the face of these difficulties the wisdom of the 
campaign will ever be questioned. There was no pre- 
cedent in history for such an attempt. Against the 
Germans or Austrians it would not have been con- 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 69 

sidered, even; against the Turks, it was thought to 
have a chance of success. To understand the Gallipoli 
campaign it is necessary to understand its object, 
which was, not to march an army to' Constantinople, 
or elsewhere, but simply to put the fleet through the 
Dardanelles. Once past the narrows, the battleships 
could quickly dominate Canstantinople, open the way 
for Russian grain to flow out and allied guns to flow 
in. This alone was the aim of the army; to land 
on the western side of the narrow peninsular and force ^ 
their way across to the straights. That the attempt 
came so near to success only adds to the tragedy. 

An army was collected literally from the ends of 
the earth; a French colonial division, a British divi- 
sion of the regular army, a naval brigade, and an Aus- 
tralian corps. The latter became known as the Anzacs, 
from Australia and New Zealand army corps. This 
army was mobilized in a harbor on the island of 
Lemnos, fifty miles or more from Gallipoli. On the 
night of April 24th it. moved to its destined battle- 
field. 

Never in the history of the world has such another 
landing been made. There was no harbor, no dock, 
no wharf; only unconnected bits of beaches. The 
Turks were entrenched at the water's edge, waiting 
for them, the beaches were a maze of barbed w r ire, 
the very waters were mined. Rising above the beaches 
were successive ridges lined with hundreds of cannon 
ready to pour a plunging fire upon the invaders. Not 
only had the troops to get ashore, but they had to 
take with them everything they would use, machine 
guns, ammunition, spades for digging trenches, food, 
even their drinking water had to be landed. 

Yet those soldiers landed. They had to approach 
the shore in small boats, many of which were struck 
by shells and sunk. Hundreds were killed before they 
could set foot ashore. The first to land were nearly 
all killed or wounded, but the survivors found a bit 



JO HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

of shelter, or dug a hole, and held on. There were 
no trenches until they could capture some held by 
the Turks, and this was not possible on the first day. 
The first landings were made at dawn at four prin- 
cipal places, with two minor landings. All were suc- 
cessful, in that the survivors were able to cling to the 
shore. The Australians were especially admirable. 
It was the first time they had met an enemy in battle, 
yet they acted like veterans. It was only at their land- 
ing place that an immediate advance inland was made. 
From forty to sixty per cent of all the troops landed 
on this first day were killed or wounded. 

The second night more troops landed, and the next 
day each unit was able to secure a footing under the 
very attempt of the Turks to push them into the sea. 
Then followed days of terrific conflict. These trenches 
were not like the trenches in France where quiet days 
were mingled with fighting. Every foot of advance 
had to be fought for. There could be no attempt to 
gain their ultimate objective until they could advance 
far enough inland to entrench, to secure a base for 
supplies on the peninsula, and to protect themselves 
from the direct fire of heavy guns. They were never 
out of danger of complete destruction or capture dur- 
ing these first efforts. All the batles during April and 
May were struggles to secure their position. 

When the campaign was planned, it was as a com- 
bined effort of England, France, and Russia. But Rus- 
sia was overtaken by misfortune, and gave up her at- 
tack on the Black Sea coast and the Bosphorus. Eng- 
land was left to face almost the whole Turkish army. 
During May the British lost three more battleships 
here. The Goliath was sunk by a mine, and on May 
26th and 27th the Triumph and the Majestic were 
sunk by a submarine that had sailed from Germany 
through the Atlantic and Mediterranean. These losses 
resulted in a partial withdrawal of the fleet. Several 
times the British submarines penetrated the Darda- 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 71 

nelles and sank Turkish warships and transports in the 
sea of Marmora. 

By the first of June the Allies had won a position 
perhaps half way to the top of the series of hills. 
They now had elbow room and could prepare a seri- 
ous attempt to reap the fruits of victory. Early in 
June they made a general advance of several hundred 
yards, which, since they had only a few scant miles to 
attain, was a considerable victory. On June 27th and 
28th an even greater success was won, three successive 
lines of trenches were taken and the Turkish army 
showed its first signs of demoralization. Had re- 
enforcements been at hand there would have been a 
great chance for final success at that moment. But 
reinforcements were in England or elsewhere; they 
were not at hand, and the opportunity was lost. 

There was a month's lull in operations while the 
British waited for reinforcements. Fifty thousand 
fresh troops arrived about August first, and a new and 
final try for victory was made. This time it was the 
Australians who bore the brunt of attack. Half of 
the new troops were Anzacs, and these were landed 
with their fellow islanders. Their landing was ac- 
complished in a manner unprecedented in warfare. 
It was important that the Turks should not suspect a 
new attack. During four nights the new troops were 
landed, and lay concealed by day in enormous dugouts 
prepared in advance. The ships that carried them 
did not approach until after dark and they were out 
of sight by dawn. The Turks saw no evidence of re- 
enforcements. Such plans and preparations were well 
deserving of victory. 

An entirely new landing was scheduled at Suvla 
Bay, farther north. The plan of battle was for the 
reinforced Australians to attack and thus hold the 
Turks to their places, while the new force from Suvla 
Bay turned the flank of the enemy. If matters went 



72 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

well this new army would not have any foes in front 
of it, and it could march inland without interference. 

The grand attack began the 6th of August. Not 
the Anzacs alone, but all the allied line attacked. 
They were successful not only in holding the enemy 
but also in making advances. But the vital part of 
the plan failed; the new army did not advance until 
it was too late. This force landed on time, the night 
of August 6th, after the great attack had begun; but 
for some reason, apparently a lack of staff organiza- 
tion, it did not advance for nearly forty-eight hours 
and even then was uncertain as to where it was to go. 
By then the Turks were aware of the new menace 
and had seized the goal themselves, which was the 
commanding heights, until then unoccupied. This 
failure made a tragedy of the whole campaign. It 
was the more distressing because a detachment of 
Anzacs actually won a section of, the heights from 
which they could look down upon the waters of the 
Hellespont, the goal of all their efforts. It was then 
that Winston Churchill declared in the House of Com- 
mons that the troops were only a mile or so from the 
greatest victory of the ages. The Anzacs clung there 
for three days, waiting for the support that never 
came. They were even fired upon by the British war- 
ships, which, seeing them on the skyline, mistook them 
for Turks. The great adventure had failed. 

The Dardanelles campaign was a subject of severe 
criticism, directed at the government officials and the 
commanding general. Inevitably, Sir Ian Hamilton 
was removed, a French cabinet fell, British ministers 
resigned. No criticisms of the troops themselves was 
possible ; they had done all that men could do. Their 
very landing was a miracle, that they even approached 
victory was a military feat worthy of immortality. 
The only instance in which the army failed was in not 
advancing from Suvla Bay, and the troops themselves 
were not at fault. Any proper criticism must rest 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 73 

upon the British authorities, first, for undertaking the 
expedition at all, and second, for not giving it full 
support once they were engaged in it. 

The consequences of the Dardanelles failure were 
serious. It lowered British prestige immeasurably; 
it gave the Turks a great victory that kept them in the 
war for three more years; it served notice upon Rus- 
sia that she would be left in her isolation; it made 
Greece and Roumania lukewarm and Bulgaria actively 
hostile. On the credit side, it kept the main Turkish 
forces from Egypt, the Caucasus and Mesopotamia, 
and caused an immense number of Turkish casualties. 
The British lost one hundred and fifteen thousand, of 
whom twenty-six thousand were killed, or died of 
wounds. The losses of the Anzacs alone were fifty 
thousand. 

In December and January the troops were with- 
drawn, and what is remarkable, withdrawn without 
loss. The bodies of the slain were left upon the hill- 
sides of Gallipoli, to make it a shrine of the British 
Empire. 

Turkey fought the Russians intermittently, and late 
in the year fought the British again, this time in lower 
Mesopotamia. A British force composed largely of 
native Indian troops advanced from the Persian Gulf. 
By September they were at Kut-El-Amara, two hun- 
dred miles inland, and on November 22d they were 
only eighteen miles from Bagdad. Their numbers 
were entirely too small for the undertaking; a strong 
Turkish army defeated them, pushed them back one 
hundred miles to Kut-El-Amara, where they besieged. 
All efforts to relieve them failed, and in the spring of 
191 6 the almost unheard-of occurrence — since ^the 
American Revolution — of a British army surrendering, 
was witnessed. 

On May 2$, 191 5, Italy went to war with Austria- 
Hungary. Her aim was frankly to gain certain por- 
tions of Austrian territory that were Italian in popu- 



74 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

lation. Of a section of Trentino containing three 
hundred and eighty thousand people, all but ten thou- 
sand were of Italian blood. The situation of Trieste 
was similar. Great Britain, France, and Russia guar- 
anteed these sections and also the Dalmatian coast to 
Italy in return for her military aid. 

Italy's campaign was difficult in the extreme. Her 
frontiers had been fixed by the enemy and were based 
upon Austria's military defensive and offensive needs. 
The whole region was mountainous, and an advance 
could be gained only by severe fighting. As a matter 
of fact, Italy made no advance as far as territory was 
concerned, during all of 191 5, after she had come to 
the main Austrian defenses. 

The Serbian campaign rested during the early 
months of the year. These were months of diplomatic 
activity in the Balkans, a contest in which Germany 
was the victor, mainly because of England's blunders. 
The British foreign office began the year with the ob- 
session that the aid of Bulgaria was their great need, 
and to obtain this aid it labored for months through 
its diplomatic agents; while all the time Bulgaria was 
mortgaged to Austria and Germany. England might 
have had the aid of Greece and Roumania, had she 
sanctioned an attack by them upon Bulgaria. But on 
the contrary, England asked for portions of Greece 
and Roumania to give to Bulgaria in return for the 
latter's aid. These bits of territory were Bulgarian 
by race, and had been taken from her in the second 
Balkan war. 

By attempting to win all the Balkan States, England 
won none of them, but instead, sacrificed Serbia. For 
after the Dardanelles and the diplomatic blunders, 
Greece and Roumania were more than ever confirmed 
in their neutrality. 

This unfortunate affair left Serbia to resist the 
united strength of three foes. By October, Germany 
could turn from Russia, and General Mackensen 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 75 

undertook a new campaign. He had a considerable 
army of Germans and Austrians, and with these forces 
he struck Serbia from the north and west. Simul- 
taneously with the Austro-German attack, Bulgaria 
declared war and her troops invaded Serbia from the 
east. The result of this overwhelming attack was 
the complete destruction of Serbia as a nation for the 
time being. That the campaign lasted two months is 
a tribute to the Serbs, who, in their mountainous 
country, resisted to the utmost. But their stronghold, 
Nish, was captured on November 5th, and by the end 
of that month the Serbs were driven from all but a 
small section of their land. 

The French and English, alarmed at the situation 
and sincerely regretting the disaster to which they had 
subjected Serbia, now attempted to go to her aid. In 
October and November, an Anglo-French army of 
about one hundred and seventy-five thousand landed 
at Salonica, in Greek territory, and as soon as they 
could organize the new army it marched northward 
to help the Serbs. There was a bare chance that, by 
reaching Uskub, they could save the day at least in 
part. But Uskub fell before they were halfway to 
it, and instead of aiding Serbia, the Allies were them- 
selves in danger. They were in a narrow valley with 
only a single supple line. Early in December the 
Bulgarians in superior force outflanked the Anglo- 
French army and drove it back into Greece. 

And now complications arose : King Constantine of 
Greece threatened to intern the Allied army, although 
they had landed in response to an appeal from the 
Greek premier, Venizelos. The latter and most of the 
Greek nation were pro-Ally, the King was pro-German, 
influenced by the Queen, a sister of the Kaiser. In 
this situation, Lord Kitchener visited Athens and 
threatened the king with dethronement. The Allies 
then received permission to occupy Salonica as a base, 
which they were already doing, fortifying it in antici- 



76 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

pation of an attack. The world looked for an im- 
mediate attack upon Salonica by the victorious Ger- 
mans, but none came. 

The Serbs were completely defeated. In December 
the Bulgarians occupied the last bit of Serbia, and the 
defeated army was homeless. They had lost one hun- 
dred thousand prisoners besides the heavy casualties, 
had lost more than half of their own force. The 
whole nation had suffered, severely from typhus during 
the year, and they were to suffer still more from their 
bitter enemies, the Bulgarians, who inflicted atrocities 
upon the people left behind. Truly, the Serbian 
people paid heavily for their opposition to Germany's 
imperial plans. 

CHAPTER X. 

THE END OF A VICTORIOUS GERMAN YEAR. 

Germany's empire was won. Practically all the 
people she schemed to control were under her thumb; 
all the lands, nearly * all the harbors and fortresses 
she coveted, were in her possession. In sixteen 
months of warfare she had greatly enlarged her do- 
minion and increased the number of her subjects by 
half. From Hamburg to Bagdad the German war 
lord ruled over a continuous domain; a dream come 
true. The proudest empire of the ages had not been 
greater than this new world state promised to be. 
The Roman empire in' its greatest days was not nearly 
so large or so populous. The empires of Alexander, 
of Charlemagne, of Louis the XIV. were dwarfed; 
not even Napoleon's empire was its equal in extent, 
numbers or wealth. 

During the year just closing, Germany had clung 
fast to her conquests in France and Belgium, with- 
standing all efforts to drive her out. She had almost 
destroyed the Russian army, had won a large territory 
in Poland and Russia; had entirely conquered Serbia, 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. JJ 

the country; had brought Bulgaria into the war, thus 
uniting her domain; she had strengthened Turkey to 
the point where she was able to resist successfully a 
strong British attack. 

German enthusiasm was tremendous. Not only was 
the nation united in a resolve to keep the conquests, 
even to Belgium, but it supported the Pan-German 
party which demanded more ports, harbors, lands, and 
insisted upon great indemnities. Germany's allies, 
dazzled by the year of conquest, were bound more 
firmly to her chariot. The effect on Greece, Holland, 
Sweden, Norway, Roumania was to discourage any 
tendency to cast their lot with Germany's enemies, 
such a course invited destruction as swift as that which 
had overtaken Serbia and Montenegro. 

But Germany's success was more seeming than real. 
She had the fruits of victory in her grasp, but she had 
not beaten her principal enemies, France and England, 
and until she had done so she could not enjoy the 
spoils. Not even Russia was defeated to the extent 
of being unable to fight ; only small Serbia and Monte- 
negro had suffered to that extent, and that for the 
moment only. To keep the empire she had won, Ger- 
many must win a victory on the west front as decisive 
as the one she had won in Russia. If she could end 
the war at once, she would be an undisputed victor. 

Therefore, Germany's aim from henceforth was to 
end the war on terms that would leave her in posses- 
sion of her conquests in the East, even though she gave 
up northern France and Belgium. All her future 
campaigns were based on this need. There were two 
ways in which such a conclusion of the conflict might 
be reached ; either through a decisive military campaign 
that should crush France, or Britain, or both; or 
through a successful defense on her present battle 
lines, a defense that would exhaust her enemies. But 
the latter course would exhaust Germany as well, would 
necessarily continue through an indefinite number of 



78 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

seasons, and it would always be subject to a success- 
ful battle on the part of the foe. 

Germany's purpose for 191 6 was to pursue the first 
course, to win by attack rather than by defense. All 
her years of preparation, all the advantage of strategic 
position, of superior artillery and numbers, could be 
fully utilized in an offensive campaign. Even though 
at times and places she might be on the defensive, it 
would always be in coordination with an attack else- 
where. Whenever the time might come that Gerr 
many would be on the defensive from necessity, when 
she could no longer force the fighting, that hour would 
foreshadow German defeat. 

The logical sequence of the victories of 191 5 would 
be a triumph over either France or England in 1916, 
Germany chose to attack France. Even after the 
months of battles during which France had so often 
opposed, so often defeated her, there still lingered in 
the German mind a belief in the essential weakness of 
France, a supposed decadence, a want of staying power 
that would be her undoing in the critical hour. From 
the day the campaigns of 191 5 were ended, prepara- 
tions for 19 1 6 began. Nothing was left undone that 
the thorough Germans could conceive of; the most 
minute preparations were made for the hour of attack. 

However brilliant the German victories, however 
confident they rendered the Teutonic allies, however 
disheartened the crushed nations and sympathetic neu- 
trals might be, the effect on the two unshaken allies,; 
France and Britain, was to spur them to renewed ef- 
forts. France was already doing nearly her utmost, 
both in fighting and in production of munitions. To 
France, the problem was exactly the same as it had been 
a year previous ; to hold fast until England should come 
to the rescue. To France, January 1916 was a year 
nearer victory than January 19 15 had been; so strong 
was her faith. Instead of the hopes and promises of 
aid of the year before, there, was partial fulfillment 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. JC) 

by Britain. So France set herself in grim determina- 
tion to hold on, with only a degree of realization of 
the terrible ordeal before her. 

To Great Britain, 191 5 was a year of disappoint- 
ment, Three great military failures and some serious 
diplomatic blunders had marked the course of the 
year. There was lack of success at Gallipoli, positive 
failure along the Tigris and checkmate at Salonica, 
There had been small successes on the western front 
which were essentially failures in that they had not 
measured up to expectations or possibilities. But 
none of these failures had been fatal — to Britain or to 
the allied cause. In the battles of Neuve Chapelle 
and Loos could be found promise of great things in 
the days to come. There was assurance that the 
Germans could be driven back; the problem was to 
train the army to do it. 

This army was in the making. Britain was at last 
awake to the immensity of the task before her. There 
was no longer an illusion that a few hundred thousand 
English, together with the French, could beat the Ger- 
mans; even the illusion that victory was to be had by 
waiting for it was losing advocates. There was 
awakening to the mechanical necessities of the war, 
to the unlimited output of munitions required, to the 
absolute need for big guns by the thousand. Prepara- 
tions went on with increasing momentum; old habits 
and prejudices were laid aside in the hour of great 
need. English union labor had rallied to the cause 
as earnestly as the candidates for the battlefront. 
Under the leadership of Lloyd George the needs of 
the nation and of the allied cause were put foremost. 
Trained men were transferred from unessential oc- 
cupations to ship building and munition making, or 
were sent to the army. Women workers by thousands 
began to appear in industrial occupations, taking the 
place of men. They acted as chauffeurs, engineers, 
worked in munition factories, handled trucks in ware- 



80 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

houses. There was hardly an occupation except those 
of fighting and ministerial duties in the English cabi- 
net in which women did not engage. 

Campaigns for soldiers stirred every corner of the 
empire. By the end of this year, three and one-half 
millions in the British Isles alone had offered their lives 
to their country, while volunteers in Canada, Australia, 
New Zealand, and South Africa were coming in by 
the hundreds of thousands. ' 

The campaign of 19 15 was not over before the 
English people began to look forward to the new 
year, to the "Big Push" that should carry the war into 
Germany. The expectation based on hope and desire 
rather than on facts, was that the Germans would be 
driven from France and Belgium before another win- 
ter. Such hopes did not take into consideration the 
almost impossible task of creating an effective army 
of millions in two years. 

But though the popular hopes were doomed to dis- 
appointment for the coming year, the military leaders 
of the Allied nations also had their visions of a long 
step toward final victory. They were in no wise dis- 
turbed by their lack of success thus far. Winston 
Spencer Churchill made a prophetic declaration when, 
during the winter of 191 5-16 he said, in effect, that 
the Germans and their allies might hold their present 
lines for a year or so longer, might even make further 
advances, and yet be more completely defeated in the 
<*md than if the French and English had been able to 
reach Berlin the first year. 

The one great lesson of 191 5 was the need for co- 
ordinated efforts. All during the months when Ger- 
many was pursuing her successful campaigns in the 
east and south, the allied front in the west had been 
virtually inactive, necessarily so through the lack of 
munitions. The resources of the Allied nations were 
vastly greater than those of the Central Powers, but 
unless these resources could be put into terms of men 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 8l 

and guns actually in line of battle, and their strength 
exerted simultaneously, they would never bring full 
victory. The first step toward a united campaign was 
a military conference held in Paris in March, 191 6, 
attended by representatives of all the Allied powers. 
It was a half step in the right direction. , 

France and Britain faced the new year with calm 
confidence, a confidence based on fact and reason, on 
their growing military strength, and very largely on 
the British navy. The navy was performing its task 
with unceasing vigilance. Sea power was a virtual 
balance to all the German victories thus far. Ham- 
burg, Bremen, and the other German ports might as 
well have been in British hands, for all their avail to 
Germany. Economic pressure was Britain's heaviest 
gun. It did not seem possible that Germany, which 
had imported annually two billion dollars worth of 
food, clothing, metals, and other necessities of life, 
could long exist with the supply cut off. 

Another watchword of the Allies was "attrition." 
Figures seemed to guarantee German defeat, seemed 
almost to foretell the hour. The enemy's ultimate 
resources in men were known, even though his actual 
righting numbers remained in doubt. And, given the 
continuous wasting of soldiers, the time would in- 
evitably come when the Germans could no longer hold 
their lines. This was a terrible road to victory, one 
of slaughter to friend and foe alike. But the Allies 
calculated that the Germans would give up rather than 
tread this road to the bitter end. It was known that 
there were more than two million German casualties 
thus far. Two more years of attrition promised to 
bring the end of the war, if it was not brought to an 
earlier finish by other means. The Russian collapse^ 
overturned the working of this theory. 

Of the lesser occurrences of the war, the Zeppelin 
and the submarine did the most to bring home to Eng- 
land the reality of the conflict, aside from her own 



82 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

half-million casualties. The great airships and the 
swift planes of Germany began to carry the war to 
English cities. But it was not until October, 191 5, 
that the first serious Zeppelin raid was made on Lon- 
don. War in the air, destruction from the air, held 
the ultimate* terrors of Armageddon — in the imagina- 
tion of mankind. Such warfare necessarily involved 
taking the lives of noncombatants, of women and 
children. It seemed too terrible for reality. But 
nothing was too terrible for the Germans to inflict 
upon their enemies. Towns and cities lived in nightly 
expectation of bombs from the sky. Nothing the re- 
cruiting agents could have done would have been half 
so effective in securing volunteers. The sight of 
mangled innocents filled the nation with effective 
wrath. By the end of 191 5 nearly fifteen hundred 
casualties from air raids had been suffered. 

The other weapon of the Germans that was directly 
affecting the English nation was proving more harm- 
ful. The submarines were sinking many of Britain's 
finest vessels, were taking almost daily toll from the 
Mistress of the Seas as she sent forth her ships. At 
first, the submarine was used to attack only naval 
vessels. But in February the Germans declared cer- 
tain kinds of food subject to military control. The 
British promptly added these to the contraband list. 
The Germans then retaliated by declaring a submarine 
blockade of the British Isles, announcing that they 
would sink all enemy vessels, whether naval or mer- 
chant, and all neutral ships in the war zone. This 
was the beginning of the critical phase of submarine 
activity that did more than anything else to make 
Germany's defeat absolute and overwhelming. 

The U-boats were immediately successful in bag- 
ging valuable prey. In June the British claimed to 
have lost only one hundred and thirty ships, half of 
which had been sunk by other agencies than sub- 
marines. By October, it was admitted that the losses 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 83 

totaled one hundred and eighty-three merchant ships 
and one hundred and seventy-five fishing vessels, while 
at the end of 191 5, the Germans reported the sinkings 
of more than five hundred ships of all nations, with a 
tonnage of nearly a million. The navy was ever 
watchful for the U-boats, but during the early months 
of the war it did not succeed in destroying any large 
number of them. 

These conflicting policies of Germany and Britain 
affected neutral nations greatly. By reason of her 
control of the seas, England could and did interfere 
blandly with the commerce of Holland, Denmark, 
Norway, and Sweden, in order to check the efforts of 
Germany to draw supplies from abroad by way of 
these countries. In justice to Britain, it may be said 
that her interference was limited to this one object. 
The United States suffered less inconvenience than 
other neutral countries, but still enough to create vast 
irritation with both belligerents, an irritation that 
changed to white wrath against Germany when the 
Lusitania\ was sunk. This wanton act, which was the 
occasion for a holiday of rejoicing in Germany, of 
"victory" medals, instantly distinguished the two sides 
of the conflict in the American mind, clearing the at- 
mosphere, and creating a hostile feeling that later 
made welcome our entry into the war. 

According to some German opinions, the United 
States was already one of the chief enemies of Ger- 
many by virtue of her war supplies. The sale of 
munitions was assuming tremendous proportions. 
During one period of thirty-six hours, nine large 
steamships left New York laden with supplies for the 
Allies. This was in 191 5, when the exports had not 
reached their high point. Here is a measure of Brit- 
ain's sea power, in that Germany was unable to get 
rubber, cotton, and copper, three things she terribly 
needed, while her enemies were able to buy to the 
extent of their requirements, or to the extent of the 



84 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

supply. Before the war was many months old, the 
export of numerous articles of warfare to the Allies 
had mounted in value to scores of millions. Auto- 
mobiles valued at sixty-five millions, horses and mules 
valued at eighty-six millions, went across the Atlantic ; 
while the needs of the actual battle line, explosives, 
were exported to the value of only sixty-five million 
dollars. The latter item grew immensely as American 
factories increased their output. One American com- 
pany, the Dupont, had three hundred million dollars 
worth of war orders in 191 5. They increased their 
plants many fold, and their employees to more than 
sixty thousand. 

But the Allies, with the exception of Russia, 
planned to stand upon their own feet in the matter of 
guns and shells. The cost of home-made munitions 
was much less than those bought abroad. First and 
last, France supplied all her own needs and supplied 
many guns to her allies. England only approached 
this condition toward the end of the war. 



CHAPTER XL 

VERDUN. 

The Battle of Verdun is the epic of the war; the 
complete story of it will be the Iliad of our time. It 
is a tale of the heroism of modern man, of valor 
worthy of the flower of knighthood of the days of 
old, of the national steadfastness of France that won 
the admiration of the world. It is a tale of the 
bravery of German soldiers, of the fatuity of German 
insight, of the failure of German plans. 

Verdun is the northernmost of the great barrier 
fortresses that guarded the Franco-German frontier. 
The town stands on the Meuse River amidst the hills 
of Lorraine. Forts crown all of the surrounding 
hills. Northeast of the Verdun group of hills is a 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 85 

broad valley, and some few miles beyond stands the 
fortress of Metz, in the hands of the Germans since 
1870. At the outbreak of the war in 19 14, the Ger- 
mans, crossing the border from Metz, had come almost 
to the edge of the Verdun hills and had flowed around 
on either side, threatening to surround them, after 
which the capture of the fortress would be only a 
question of time. The victory of the Marne had re- 
lieved one flank, while the other remained in the hands 
of the enemy. This was the famous St. Mihiel sa- 
lient, which, however, played little part in the siege 
of Verdun. From October, 19 14, to Febrauary, 19 16, 
there was no change in the battle lines around Verdun. 

Verdun was as strongly fortified after the old plan 
of defenses as was possible for French ingenuity to 
conceive. But the lessons of Liege, Namur, and Ant- 
werp were quickly utilized and the plan of defense 
changed from stationary forts to mobile batteries. 
It still retained the reputation of being the strongest 
citadel in the world, whereas, under the changed con- 
ditions, there were elements of weakness, of which 
the Germans were fully aware. It was in a narrow 
semicircle thrust into the enemy lines, hence subject 
to converging attacks from three sides. A salient is 
always weak to a certain degree. Another element of 
weakness was the lack of railways. The Germans at 
St. Mihiel had cut one line, and they had another under 
their guns west of the Meuse, preventing its use. 
Only one narrow-guage line remained, entirely in- 
sufficient to supply the needs of a long battle. 

Verdun held a sentimental value to France; to lose 
Verdun would have been a blow to French national 
pride. This also the Germans understood, and it was 
one of the factors that determined the place of attack. 
Germany counted heavily upon a successful outcome 
of the assault. To her, it was to be the critical battle 
of the war; on this battle she centered her chief 
energies for half a year. To win Verdun seemed, to 



86 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

the Germans, to assure the victorious peace they so 
earnestly desired. This belief was based on a mis- 
conception of the French army and the French nation. 
In the eyes of the Germans, France was desperately 
tired of the war, had only a faint hope of winning, 
and only the hope of regaining Alsace and Lorraine 
kept her in the fighting. She needed but one serious 
defeat, such as the capture of Verdun, to be in the 
mood for any peace that did not deprive her of further 
territory. The capture of Verdun would be the most 
serious defeat, short of the destruction of her armies, 
that Germany could inflict upon France, because 
France would thereby lose the starting place for an 
invasion of Lorraine. The Germans, furthermore, 
still clung to the notion with which they began the 
war that the French armies would collapse under ter- 
rific strain. The German plan in the Verdun attack 
was for greater results than that of gaining a few 
more miles of France; it was to win peace by crushing 
the spirit of France. 

In February, a month in which campaigning was not 
considered possible, a number of sharp German at- 
tacks were made along the entire French line. This 
was notice of an attack, but the French were left in 
doubt as to the place. There were strong reasons 
impelling the Germans to attack so early in the year. 
It was well known to them that the British were arm- 
ing at least two million men for the 1916 campaign, 
and it was also known that these armies would not be 
ready for battle for some months to come. If Ger- 
many could compel the use of these troops while they 
were still raw, if they were of necessity thrown into 
battle, it would be a very great gain in that it would 
surely prevent any Allied offensive during the rest of 
the year. Equally compelling was the Russian situ- 
ation. Germany by now realized that she had not 
crushed the Russians the previous year, realized that 
a new attack could be expected when the season per- 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 87 

mitted. Russian tactics had hitherto proved most dis- 
concerting to Germany. Several times she had been 
compelled to change her plans to deal with the Slav 
hordes. Here was the main reason for a February 
attack on France. It was the 19 14 situation over 
again, an attempt to defeat France before Russia could 
help. 

One of the military advantages accruing to Ger- 
many from her years of preparation was a great re- 
serve army. She had enough troops to hold all of 
the many long fronts with immediate reserves for 
these forces, and in addition she had an army of per- 
haps half a million that was unattacked. This army, 
in the hands of Hindenburg or Mackensen, was used 
for defense or attack as needed; it had been used to 
strengthen the Austrians when they were threatened 
with utter defeat; it had been the weapon that forced 
the Russians back a hundred miles and more; part of 
it had gone with Mackensen through Serbia. Now, 
this reserve force was turned over to Crown Prince 
Frederick Wilhelm for the attack on Verdun. Three 
hundred thousand German troops were gathered for 
the assault. A schedule of advance was made, that 
called for the occupation of the town in not more than 
ten days. 

On February 21st the assault began. For nine 
hours a terrible fire was poured upon the French de- 
fenders of the advanced lines. Every vestige of 
trenches was obliterated, the soldiers were blown to 
pieces or terribly wounded. Nothing so awful had 
yet been seen in warfare as the German fire. When 
the guns ceased their roar. the infantry advanced ex- 
actly as scheduled, and established themselves in the 
ruined defenses. On February 226. the artillery pre- 
pared the way for the next step forward, searching 
out every yard of ground in the immediate front, and 
almost every acre back of the lines, deluging the de- 
fenders with the eruptions of monster guns, burying 



88 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

them in the ruins of their own trenches. The explo- 
sions shook heaven and earth. The Germans fired 
nearly a million high explosive shells daily for four 
days. The French clung to any shelter that offered, 
expecting death in an instant or an hour, but asking 
only that they might kill a few Germans before the 
end came. 

At the end of four days, the Germans were in Fort 
Douaumont, a day later than they had planned. They 
had literally torn it from the dying grasp of the de- 
fenders. Douaumont was considered the key to Ver- 
dun; its capture was heralded to the world as a fore- 
runner of certain victory. The Kaiser, who from a 
distant hill had watched the battle, proclaimed the tri- 
umph of his invincible armies, while his agents the 
world over echoed his words. The Teutons and their 
allies foresaw an early peace. 

In France the situation was instantly seen as serious. 
So bad a position to defend was Verdun that General 
JofTre was prepared to evacuate the whole salient. 
But French statesmen for once interfered with mili- 
tary plans, declaring that Verdun stood as a visible 
sign of French strength and should be defended. 
There should French and German manhood, valor, and 
genius clash to the finish. The military command ac- 
cepted the decision and at once took means to hold 
the fortress. General Petain was sent to take com- 
mand, reinforcements were hurried in. The difficul- 
ties of transportation were overcome by use of motor 
trucks — thousands of them. Day and night there was 
a continuous line fifty miles long, taking men, muni- 
tions, and food to the defenders. The motor transport 
was the salvation of Verdun. 

Only about one hundred and twenty thousand 
French held the Verdun region when the storm broke. 
The German advance was made by fourteen divisions, 
with only three French divisions to oppose them. 
But the first four days advance was the last the Ger- 






HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 89 

mans made cheaply and easily. The defense stiffened 
when the decision was made to hold Verdun, if it were 
possible. The Germans were continuing their advance, 
seemingly as inexorable as fate. The critical moment 
came on February 26th, the day after the taking of 
Douaumont. Petain launched his first counter offen- 
sive, sending in the famous Iron Corps, the Twentieth. 
Douaumont was retaken, the German momentum was 
lost. During the next three days, Douaumont changed 
hands three times. The struggle was terrific, unpre- 
cedented, exhausting. Regions that had just been sub- 
jected to a volcano of shell fire and in which, by Ger- 
man calculations, every French soldier should be dead, 
still held enough live defenders to dispute every inch 
of ground. After the first rush of the foe was stopped, 
the battle became apparently a struggle for bits of 
ground ; not an advance of fifty yards did the Germans 
make but they were driven back by a counter attack. 
Positions changed hands daily or twice daily. But 
it was not at all a struggle for lines of trenches; it 
was a death grapple between the French and German 
nations. To the blazing French spirit, every step for- 
ward of the enemy was a dishonor to France, a stain 
to be washed out with blood. 

When the Germans found "themselves checked on 
the edge of the Douaumont plateau, they promptly 
extended their attack to the southwest, where they as 
swiftly swept over the low ground to the edge of the 
hills, and as suddenly stopped when they came to the 
real defenses. Here again every gain had to be paid 
for by the death of German soldiers. The first week 
saw one hundred square miles captured by the Ger- 
mans ; the second week only twenty, while the gains of 
the succeeding weeks could more easily be stated in 
terms of square yards. 

The village and fort of Vaux were won by the 
Germans on March 9th ; but the advance at that point 
suffered the same fate as at Douaumont. The fort 



90 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

changed hands many times; sometimes the Germans 
held one side of the ravine in which the town is and 
the French the other side. 

The German advance was at first made as economi- 
cally as possible; the artillery preparing the way and 
not more than two or three regiments thrown in at 
one time. But later, as the German leaders grew 
desperate and demanded success at any price, soldiers 
were sacrificed almost recklessly to gain the goal; and 
the goal was not won. It was as if Pickett's charge 
at Gettysburg had been repeated daily and nightly for 
weeks. Regiments and divisions did not last long in 
the hellish fire of Verdun. There was a constant flow 
of fresh troops, both German and French, into the 
crucible; a few days later, the remnants were with- 
drawn. Neither side dared to publish their losses, 
which, on the part of the Germans, were too terrible 
for their lack of success, since they were the aggres- 
sors. Sir Douglas Haig offered any part of the Brit- 
ish army for use at Verdun, but it had become a 
matter of pride for the French to hold it by their 
own efforts. But the British shortly took over thirty 
more miles of the front, increasing their line to eighty 
miles, thus releasing a large number of French. 

The third phase of the conflict began the second 
week in March, when the Crown Prince attacked on 
the opposite side of the Meuse, west of Verdun. A' 
success here would win the battle, even though the 
original frontal attack failed. An eminence called 
"Dead Man's Hill" here occupied the commanding 
position that Douaumont did on the other side of the 
river, although it was two hundred and eighty feet 
lower than the latter. A week's attack took the Ger- 
mans to the foot of the hill, and on March 14th they 
attained the lesser of the two summits. The fight for 
Dead Man's Hill became as deadly as that for Douau- 
mont and Vaux. The Germans were unable to com- 
plete their conquest of the summit, nor did they succeed 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 91 

in flanking it. For twelve days they assaulted Hill 
304, west of Dead Man's Hill, without winning it. 

And still the Germans persevered, turning their at- 
tention to Pepper Ridge, which, if won, would be a side 
gate to Verdun between Douaumont and Dead Man's 
Hill. When, after days of assault, the Germans made 
their final attack on April 18th and failed, the French 
leaders knew Verdun was saved. It is not the pur- 
pose of this short history to narrate in detail all of 
such a battle, even if the facts were yet available. 
Through March, April, May, June, and into July, and 
until the battles on the Somme called away the German 
reserves, did they persevere in the attempt. For 
weeks, at home and abroad, Verdun was proclaimed as 
a triumph of German soldiery and generalship, until 
the fact of defeat could no longer be concealed. 

In May the French began to regain ground, although 
in small bits. The Germans were pushed back from 
Pepper Ridge, and on May 226. the French gained a 
footing in Douaumont which was only a mass of ruins. 
The Germans pushed them back, however, and in June 
again attempted to traverse the original road to Ver- 
dun through the center. They even made a consider- 
able advance during this period, gaining about a mile 
forward, and- for the first time won complete posses- 
sion of Vaux. Another redoubt, Thixmont, at the 
limit of the new German advance, changed hands even 
more often than Douaumont. But it was their last 
step forward. By the middle of July, when all serious 
attempt to advance was over, the Germans had gained 
about six miles of France on a fifteen-mile front; a 
slight reward for the sacrifice of three hundred thou- 
sand to five hundred thousand men. Thirty thousand 
French were captured in the first three weeks, but 
thereafter, the majority of the casualties were num- 
bered in killed and wounded. All through the weeks 
and months, French soldiers marched into almost cer- 
tain death until two hundred thousand of them had 



92 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

fallen. They marched for France, glad to lay them- 
selves on the altar, ever bearing in mind the famous 
saying of Petain's "They shall not pass." Never had 
France been so worthy of Joan of Arc. 

After the French soldiers themselves, the defense 
of Verdun was due to the guns, especially the famous 
"seventy-fives," a three-inch field gun of wonderful 
mechanism, that once registered could be fired continu- 
ously without further aiming. This marvelous rapid- 
fire gun poured annihilating fire upon every German 
position, caught many advancing lines in direct fire. 
The French were never short of shells, thanks to the 
motor transport. 

The sequel to the German attack came in October. 
General Neville was then in command, Petain having 
been promoted to the command of a group of armies. 
Three divisions made a sudden attack that recovered 
Douaumont, and a few days, later, Vaux also was re- 
captured, with a loss of only five thousand French. 
Six thousand Germans were captured. An even 
greater challenge was made on December 15th, when 
General Mangin advanced again, and retook a great 
part of the ground lost in February and March, in- 
cluding every point of strategic value. Eleven thou- 
sand prisoners were taken on this occasion. 

By their successful defense of Verdun, the French 
sent German prestige to the lowest point it had yet 
seen during the war. It was a full answer to all the 
German victories of the previous year and discounted 
in part the triumphs the Germans were yet to win. 
It disposed of the tradition of the German superman, 
inflicted a terrible blow upon German leadership, it 
withheld from the Crown Prince his laurels of victory. 
It opened a window through which the Allies might 
see final victory. All France felt that the crisis was 
past, however long the end might be delayed. 






HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 93 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE BATTLES ON THE SOMME. 

The struggle of the Somme, to be seen in its true 
light, should not be considered by itself. The attempt 
of the French and British to advance through the 
German lines was but a part of a general Allied offen- 
sive, and it was planned as such. In June, while the 
Germans were occupied with Verdun, and the Aus- 
trians with Italy, the Allies coordinated offensive be- 
gan when the Russians under Brusiloff began their 
greatest campaign. In July the French and British 
attacked; in August the Italians, and in September 
the Roumanians and the Salonica army did their part. 
That the Germans were able to> check the attack on 
all fronts does not lessen their value. The plan of a 
united attack was the strongest weapon of the Entente 
Allies, and the only one that held any hope of an early 
victory. 

The country of the Somme in that part of its course 
which was the scene of the battle is a region of gently 
rolling hills and valleys, adaptable for the action of 
small bodies of troops in connection with a general 
battle. One part of the line could advance safely, 
even though another part should be held up. But this 
was an advantage lying equally with the defense. 

The larger plan of the battle, as has been said, was 
to cooperate with all the allies in the hope of breaking 
the enemy lines on some one of the fronts. The local 
plan, aside from the aim of inflicting as many casual- 
ties as possible upon the German army, was to gain 
certain strategic points that would compel a retreat 
over a considerable front. Bapaume and Peronne 
were the immediate, Cambrai and St. Ouentin the 
ultimate objectives of the British and French. 

When, during the battle of Verdun, the British ex- 



94 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

tended their lines, the new flank met the French close 
to the river Somine. The German line here formed a 
huge salient; by breaking in a section of it, the aban- 
donment of the rest would be forced. The French 
army adjoining the British was under the command 
of General Foch. His army and Haig's planned a 
joint attack; the French on a front of about eight 
miles, the British about twenty miles. 

Preparations for the battle began months in advance. 
Both allies made huge accumulations of shells for 
their many guns. The British had more to do in the 
way of equipment because of their former lack of it. 
Their attacks of the previous year had failed largely 
because of the lack of shells. But there was to be no 
scarcity of ammunition at the Somme. Lloyd 
George's work as director of munitions began to be 
apparent in the spring of 19 16, as thousands of 
guns and millions of shells arrived behind the lines. 
The output of explosives was eleven thousand times 
more than in peace times, in England; as many shells 
for big guns as were made during the first entire year 
of the war, were, by 1916, merely the output of four 
days. A signal corps of Haig's army required forty- 
six miles of motor trucks in constant service to supply 
its needs. 

Greater than the guns in value were the men. Brit- 
ain's expeditionary army had grown from one of a 
hundred thousand to a mighty force of nearly two 
million. Britain was at last ready; the long vigil of 
France promised to be recompensed. There had been 
nearly five million volunteers in the British Empire, 
up to the time of the Somme, but in spite of that, 
limited conscription was put in force in England, 
since it was recognized that the wastage would be 
great. 

The momentous battle began on July 1st. For 
nearly a week before, the whole Allied line flamed 
with shot and shell, heralding an attack, but leaving 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. Q5 

the foe in doubt as to where it would come. But, as 
a matter of fact, the Germans were not greatly de- 
ceived. They knew for weeks in advance that the 
British would attack, and made tremendous efforts 
to strengthen their lines, with the idea that a British 
failure would be the greatest possible victory for the 
Germans. But they were slightly in error as to the 
place of attack, having prepared to meet it on the 
northern half of the actual battleground, but not on 
the southern. They did not anticipate a French at- 
tack, believing their forces to have been exhausted by 
Verdun. 

When the soldiers went over the top on the morn- 
ing of July i st, the French and the extreme right of 
the English swept forward almost at once to their 
first objectives. In three days Foch's men advanced 
six miles to the outskirts of Peronne, while the Brit- 
ish were four miles forward at their farthest point. 
Twenty thousand prisoners were taken in the first 
rush. But the left of the British was held up by the 
strong defenses of the Germans. The enemy showed 
an amazing mastery of trench warfare; having fore- 
seen the intense bombardments, he took measures to 
enable the troops to hold their lines in spite of the 
rush. The most effective defenses were huge dugouts, 
invulnerable to the heaviest shells; these, in many in- 
stances, sheltered hundreds of men. Taking refuge 
in these bomb-proof shelters during a bombardment, 
the Germans swarmed out as soon as the firing ceased, 
and were ready to meet an infantry attack with ma- 
chine-gun fire. 

About twelve miles of the British attacking force 
were stopped in their tracks. From the town of 
Thiepval, northward, they ran against these defenses, 
and suffered terrible losses during the first day, and 
at night the survivors crawled back to their own lines. 
For the time the British abandoned their attack in the 
northern half of the battlefield, and the Germans pro- 



g6 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

claimed to the world the defeat of the British army. 
But the latter took even Thiepval and Beaumont- 
Hamel in time. Meanwhile, they concentrated their 
efforts in the part of the field where they had been 
partly successful. 

The French had made their great advance at one 
step, almost, and had to wait until the British brought 
their line forward before they attempted to go farther. 
British attacks were almost continuous; a bit of 
ground, a hill summit, a ruined village were taken one 
by one. They first shelled each desired place and then 
captured it, or partly so, in a great rush. The Ger- 
mans were brave and their defense was strenuous. 
They were proud veterans, owning no equals as sol- 
diers ; the British fought to establish not only equality 
but supremacy. The fight became one of man against 
man, German against Briton; a fight in which bayonets, 
bombs, clubbed rifles and fists had their part. It was 
less a struggle for ground than a contest for mastery 
between the races. Not a mile, not a yard of advance 
was gained undisputed, and not a gain was held in 
peace. A battalion that won its objectives could ex- 
pect the fiercest attempts to drive it out. But the Brit- 
ish were keyed up to this kind of fighting and they 
gave the foe no rest. 

Two weeks after the beginning of the battle, a sec- 
ond general advance was attempted. It was success- 
ful in breaking entirely through the second German 
line in places. A spectacular part of this action was 
a raid by a squadron of British cavalry, almost un- 
heard-of since the war of positions began. The horse- 
men broke through into the open, inflicted some cas- 
ualties, took some prisoners, and returned in safety. 
The British took ten thousand prisoners in two days. 
For three days after the break the Germans made 
tremendous efforts to drive back the enemy. Their 
utmost strength in guns and men, their full resources 
in shells and bravery, were exerted to cancel the gains 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 97 

of the British and French. But the Allies held onto 
all they had won. 

On July 20th the French made new gains, widen- 
ing their six-mile advance to the entire ten miles of 
their part of the battle. On the 23d the British 
gained a fortified village on the slope of the ridge. 
The command of the high ground is always the chief 
prize in any battle. The ridge at the Somme ran close 
to the original front line, north of Thiepval, but 
farther south, back of Tricourt, it was a few miles 
east of the starting place of the battle. As long as 
it was in German hands, they had the advantage of 
observation, and also could bring up reinforcements 
unseen. To gain the ridge was the first task of the 
British; to gain even a footing on the slope was a 
small triumph. The entire second month of the battle 
was a struggle for the ridge. The third system of 
defenses, supposedly the last fortified line the Ger- 
mans had prepared, lay between the British and the 
summit. Rod by rod, position by position, the Brit- 
ish wrested this line from the foe. No sooner was a 
wrecked and half -filled trench captured than it had 
to be defended against the attacks of its late possessors. 
The fight for a group of farm buildings often lasted 
for days. The struggle for any forest land was 
especially exhausting and costly. Delville Wood, 
which cost many British lives to gain, became Devil's 
Wood, to the soldiers. 

The most deadly weapon of the defenders were 
machine guns. These could be placed in any bit of 
shelter and from cover pour a sheet of leaden hail 
upon troops advancing in the open. The German 
dugouts were new to the British and they often passed 
them by, at first, only to be caught in the rear by 
German machine gunners, who had emerged from their 
holes. The British soon learned to clean up the dug- 
outs as they went. Machine guns were the most 
hated and dreaded of all weapons. A line of men 



98 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

caught exposed to direct fire lost a third of their 
number in a short time. Not even the immense shells 
were so terrible. If each of the shells fired had killed 
or wounded a man, both armies would have been 
destroyed in a day. If one shell in ten had found a 
human mark, no army could have endured the loss. 
But machine-gun bullets by the hundred thousand flew 
over the battle lines, and many of them found their 
billets. 

Aeroplanes were used on a greater scale than ever. 
At the outset, the British had gained absolute suprem- 
acy in the air, simply by mobilizing their planes. 
They kept the German scouts from finding their big 
guns, their roads full of troops and supplies. But 
when the Germans saw r the importance of the battle, 
they too assembled planes by the score. Both sides 
were ever busy in bombing and observing the enemy 
lines. In the greatest air battle yet seen on any one 
day, forty-two planes of the three combatants were 
lost. 

But in spite of machine-gun fire, in spite of the 
utmost efforts of the Germans, the British won the 
ridge. After a month of constant fighting, they ad- 
vanced to the top, and early in September had won 
seven miles of the summit. To say that an advance 
of only a mile was represented in the month's fighting, 
is to dwarf the achievement of the British troops. 
But a mile was a big gain in trench warfare, and it 
represented the utmost efforts of several hundred thou- 
sand soldiers. The British as well as the French were 
through the third German line; but so slow had been 
the advance that new defenses were ready for the 
enemy. 

September found the Allies still fighting forward, 
throwing in new men, using up enemy reserves. On 
September 3d and 4th there was a renewed advance; 
down the slope of the ridge this time. On the 9th 
Ginchy was won. On the 12th the French made their 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 99 

largest single day's gain of territory. This was in 
striking contrast to Verdun, where the Germans made 
no gains of consequence after the first two weeks. 

The bulk of the fighting was done by English and 
Scotch regiments, Londoners, Yorkshiremen, High- 
landers. The Irish had a part in some of the fiercest 
struggles; they were among the troops that broke the 
second German line on July 14th, and they bore the 
brunt of the final attack on the ridge. The colonies 
did their share. The Anzacs first appeared in France 
during this year, and were assigned to the Somme 
region. They fought after their own impetuous 
fashion, and the Germans soon learned to fear them, 
even as the Turks had feared them. The Canadians 
had thus far been at Ypres, but they appeared at the 
Somme in September. The men from North America 
are given credit for an innovation in trench warfare 
— the raid for prisoners and information. By this 
means commanders learned what troops were in front 
of them, and of what strength they were. In future 
battles trench raids were an important part of the 
preparation for attack. 

On September -14th the British sprang one of the 
great surprises of the war, by using a new weapon, 
one that was destined to shorten it by at least a year. 
This was the "tank." Here at last was a way to deal 
at once with barbed wire, trenches, buildings and ma- 
chine guns. Concentrated artillery fire could deal 
with the first three — if hits were made. But machine 
guns were always troublesome, even after the most 
terrific bombardment. They escaped destruction in 
the dugouts. But the tank could make directly against 
a nest of machine guns, climbing over trenches and 
shell craters, flattening the lines of barbed wire and 
crashing down ruined buildings. It was invulnerable 
to rifle or machine-gun bullets; only the larger shells 
could harm it. 

The tank, as it was called, was not the invention of 



IOO HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

any one man, but rather the adaption to military use of 
the caterpiller belt tractor used for agricultural and 
other purposes. Colonel Swinton of the British army 
was responsible for its construction. 

There were only a few of those first tanks, but they 
did in a day what soldiers unaided could hardly have 
done in two weeks. They were an utter surprise to 
the Germans, who fled from before their path or sur- 
rendered in terror. Behind the line of tanks marched 
the British soldiers, for once in little danger from 
machine guns. Canadian and English troops took 
part in the advance, which swept forward two miles 
in a line six miles long. A wedge was pushed be- 
tween Peronne and Baupaume, and several thousand 
prisoners were captured. 

The tanks made a great sensation in the military 
world, and it was decided to construct them in large 
numbers. They were half expected to sweep the 
Germans back at once, but there were defects in the 
first ones used — some broke down, others were dam- 
aged by enemy shells, so that two-thirds of them 
were put out of action. 

At the end of two months and a half the Allies 
had captured sixty thousand prisoners, had taken forty 
towns and villages; surely a great change from the 
days when they clung to the edge of Ypres, barely 
able to hold their own. 

While the British right and the whole French attack- 
ing line were advancing, the British left before Thiep- 
val was still almost in its original position, thus far 
unable to advance. But late in September the Brit- 
ish made a determined effort to get forward. Del- 
uging the enemy lines with shells, they next laid down 
the greatest artillery barrage fire yet seen in the war, 
and under cover of it the troops took Thiepval, with 
all its machine-gun nests and dugouts. They still could 
not advance as fast as they did farther south, but the 
pressure on the German army was ever strong. The 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. IOI 

Germans had boasted that their defenses were impreg- 
nable; but the British wiped them up one by one. 
About the same time, the French and British together 
took the important town of Combles. 

The season was now well advanced, and any greater 
progress was ended for the year. In October the 
British made another slight advance beyond Thiepval. 
In November the French completed the capture of the 
fourth erjemy line, which put them beyond the original 
defenses. On November 13th the British began a 
new phase of the battle, pushing forward along the 
Ancre brook, that formed the northern boundary of 
the original Somme battle. They captured five thou- 
sand more prisoners, resisted a strong counter attack, 
and made gains that would be valuable later. But the 
rains of winter put a stop to all major campaigning; 
the first battles of the Somme were over. 

The Somme marks the dividing line of the war. 
It was then that the first forward movement began, 
that two years later was to bring victory. It marked 
the break in the series of spectacular German victories. 
It -was the first assurance that British armies composed 
of men taken from civilian life could meet their pro- 
fessional enemy on equal terms ; that the British guns 
and gunners would be equal to the occasion. The 
British went into the Somme recruits and emerged 
veterans, fit for anything. 

In duration, in numbers engaged and in casualties, 
the battles of the Somme were approached only by the 
Russian campaigns and by Verdun, of any preced- 
ing action. In no previous war had any struggle ap- 
proximated more than a day or two of this five months' 
battle. First and last, the British used close to a 
million soldiers ; the Germans about the same number ; 
while Foch engaged a smaller force, since his fighting 
was not continuous as was that of the British. 

The British losses for July and August averaged 
more than four thousand daily; for September, they 



102 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 






were thirty-eight hundred ; for October, thirty-six hun- 
dred daily. To understand this great loss, imagine 
the total population of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., as being 
killed or wounded in one week. For the whole period 
of the war thus far, the British loss averaged one thou- 
sand men each day. During this period, the Ger- 
mans and Russians were suffering losses equal to, if 
not greater than, those of the English. The French, 
Italians, and Austrians were losing men by hundreds 
of thousands. As an example, the losses in killed and 
wounded of all combatants during August, 1916, would 
more than equal the combined population of Albany, 
Trenton, Dayton, Salt Lake City, and Spokane. 

The geographical objectives of the attack were not 
gained, Peronne and Bapaume were not won, but the 
moral result was great. The new British armies had 
established their supremacy;, had begun the battle 
facing proud, confident Germans, had ended it with an 
enemy shaken to the heart, fearful of the coming year. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE WAR ON OTHER FRONTS IN I916. 

The transfer of the Russian Grand Duke Nicholas 
to the command of the armies facing the Turks was 
assurance that there would be activity on that front. 
The fighting began early. In January and February 
the Russian armies fought their way southward and 
westward into Armenia. In February, in the dead 
of winter, they captured the important fortified city 
of Erzernm, and with this as a center, they spread out 
in all directions. It began to look as though the Rus- 
sians and not the English were to close the career of 
the Turkish Empire. The former were many hundred 
miles nearer Constantinople than were the British in 
Mesopotamia; and the latter were, at this time, be- 
sieged. Another Russian army was progressing slowly 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 103 

along the south shore of the Black Sea toward 
Trebizond, which they captured in April. 

This Russian activity thwarted any designs the 
Turks may have had upon Suez; although they did 
make a weak attack on Egypt in August, 191 6; but it 
was easily defeated. 

On the main Russian front, there was almost con- 
stant fighting. In December, January, March, and 
April the commander of the northern armies, Kuro- 
patkin — of Japanese war fame — made strong attacks 
that occupied numerous German troops. Brusiloff, 
the southern commander, made an ineffective attempt 
in February to advance. 

The activity of the Teutonic allies toward their own 
plans began in May, when, on the 15th of that month, 
the Austrians made their first assault on the Italian 
lines. Up to that time, they had rested upon the de- 
fensive. Italy was not then at war with Germany. 

The Austrian attack was launched from Trentino, 
where their territory extended far down on the flank 
of northern Italy. To rectify this dangerous defen- 
sive position was one of Italy's objects in the war. 
Austria held all the strategic points, all the higher 
mountain passes. Italy had to struggle up the moun- 
tains to attack ; Austria could easily launch an assault 
from above. An attack from the southernmost Aus- 
trian positions struck far in the rear of the advanced 
Italian armies, and if greatly successful, would have 
a chance to bag a large part of them. 

This was the purpose of the attack in May, when 
six hundred thousand Austrians began to* battle. In. 
three days all the Italian gains of a year were re- 
covered. On the fourth day the Austrians crossed 
into Italy. Thirty thousand prisoners was one result 
of the first week's drive. The Italians made frantic 
efforts to hold the enemy, but disorganization led to 
the evacuation of strong positions without a battle. 
The overwhelming force at the place of attack broke 



104 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

the resistance of a part of the Italian forces, and they 
were falling back upon their last defense line in the 
hills. The nearer the drive came to the open country 
of the valley, the more strongly the Austrian force 
could press the enemy. In two weeks the crisis came ; 
if the advance was not stopped, the other Italian armies 
would be in peril. A last desperate defense was made, 
and made valiantly, but the danger was still great 
when the attack was checked. It was checked, not by 
the Italians, but by the Russians. 

In the Allied war council held in Paris, when Verdun 
was in danger, it was agreed that Russia should be 
the first of the Allies to launch a general offensive ; to 
be followed by the others as they were ready. There 
were reasons why such a plan should bring success to 
the Russian arms. Germany and Austria felt little 
fear of Russia, believing her to be beaten and out of 
the war for the year, as far as serious operations were 
concerned. It was known that Germany had with- 
drawn several hundred thousand men from the Rus- 
sian front, and that Austria did likewise in preparation 
for her attack on Italy. But Russia was not beaten. 
Her numbers were inexhaustible, her morale still good, 
and her munitions had been replenished from Japan 
and America and from England by way of the Arctic 
Sea. Russia was to surprise the enemy. 

The great Russian campaign of 191 6 began on June 
4th, when General Brusiloff attacked along a front of 
two hundred and fifty miles; the greatest single battle 
of the war up to that time. His assault was launched 
against the traditional weak point of the enemy lines, 
that part held by the Austrians. The front was very 
weakly held, there being no anticipation of attack. 
Beginning with an artillery bombardment rivaling 
that of the British, the Russians demolished the enemy 
front lines and moved forward in one immensely long 
line. Except for some miles in the center, the Aus- 
trian front was broken in many places by the irresist- 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 105 

lble force of the Russian multitudes. In four days 
there was an advance of twenty miles and a capture of 
fifty thousand prisoners. Everywhere the Austrians 
fell back, almost in rout; even as they had fled in the 
first 1914 campaign. They abandoned their Italian 
offensive at once and rushed all reserves to the broken 
battle lines. 

But the Russians were not to be stopped immedi- 
ately. By June 17th they had captured eastern 
Bukowina, including Czernowitz, the capital; the 
northern wing of BrusilofFs army was making even 
greater progress. On June 20th the Russians claimed 
one hundred and seventy thousand prisoners. The 
miracle of Russian resurrection and the magnitude of 
Austrian disaster was revealed, and Allied hopes 
mounted as they had not previously done. The Rus- 
sians pressed on, thirty and forty miles beyond their 
starting place. By the end of June German help was 
at hand. Hindenburg concentrated a force at the 
place of greatest danger, which was near the city of 
Kovel. The capture of this would deprive them of 
an important railway and would open to the Russians 
the way to Lemberg. The Russians were almost in- 
stantly checked, and although fighting of the severest 
character continued for weeks, they were not able to 
resume their advance at that point. 

But along the southern end of the line the Russians 
continued their drive through July. By the end of 
the month they were far beyond Czernowitz, had oc- 
cupied all of Bukowina, and were once more reaching 
out for their everlasting goal, the passes of the Car- 
pathians. Nearly three hundred and fifty thousand 
prisoners and much of the equipment of the Austrian 
army had been captured. On August 10th Stanislau 
was taken. This marked practically the end of Brusi- 
loff's advance, although the struggle continued for 
weeks. In August the authority of Von Hindenburg 
was extended to include the Austro-Hungarian armies, 



I06 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

and by his defensive measures the Russians were held. 
Troops from every available source, including Turkish 
troops, were hurried to form a new barrier against the 
Slavs. 

The final phase of the great campaign was a struggle 
for the lines of the Dniester and its branches. All 
through August and into September the Russians 
fought to pass over the rivers, but their ammunition 
was exhausted, and the battle was ended. Russia's 
last great campaign was over. Henceforth the Rus- 
sians were to pass through the various stages of 
treachery, treason, revolution, counter revolution, 
fanaticism, disintegration and downfall. 

The world may well pay a tribute to the Russians, 
for their part in the great war against Germany and 
Germany's allies. Many times she came to the rescue 
of her hard-pressed allies, often at a terrible cost to 
herself. It is a question if the Russian attack in 19.1 4 
— begun before Russia was really prepared to fight — » 
did not save France. It is a certainty that her absorp- 
tion of German energy in 191 5 gave France a needed 
rest and permitted Britain to get ready. It is a prob- 
ability that her Turkish campaign drained Turkey of 
J the soldiers that might otherwise have succeeded in 
I their attack on Suez. It is a certainty that Russia 
J saved Italy from a serious defeat. In her last cam- 
Ipaign she virtually sapped the offensive power of 
j Austria-Hungary The Dual Kingdom never there- 
■after undertook a serious campaign without German 
direction and assistance. But Russia could not save 
herself, could not endure to the end. 

The Russian campaigns were always the most spec- 
tacular of the war : the imagination was caught by the 
battles involving such large numbers and by such 
great fluctuations of fortune ; by the advances and re- 
treats of fifty and one hundred miles, contrasting 
oddly with the deadlock in France and Belgium. 
The truth is that Germany never fortified herself 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 107 

against the Russians as she did on the west front, 
relying on her better class of soldiers, on her general- 
ship and her railroads to defeat the numerically su- 
perior foe. But all these would have proved ineffec- 
tive, had she not also used a fourth weapon — treachery. 

The Italians were no sooner relieved of the Aus- 
trian pressure than they began to reestablish them- 
selves in their former defensive positions. All through 
June and July they fought their way back to the 
heights on the Trentino front. It was necessary to 
safeguard themselves there before they could carry 
out their part of the general allied offensive; it was 
closing and fastening their back door before they 
dared to venture out of their front door. By the 
end of July they were ready to begin an attack of their 
own. 

One of the two objectives of the Italians was the 
city of Trieste, at the head of the Adriatic Sea. It 
was Austria's only commercial seaport, but the popu- 
lation was largely Italian, and Italy claimed it as hers 
by natural right. It was to capture Trieste that their 
principal campaign of the war was fought. Although 
the distance in miles was short, the way was difficult 
in the extreme. Rugged mountains, extending to the 
very edge of the coast, barred the road; and these 
mountains were defended with all the scientific re- 
sources of the Austrian army. 

The Italians had expended their chief energies since 
their entry into war in approaching the defenses of 
Trieste. Their progress was by rods rather than 
miles, but it was real progress, owing to the nature of 
the ground. No other battle front approached the 
Italian in the variety of engineering skill called into 
play ; hardly any war in history excelled it in the spec- 
tacular feats performed. Troops scaled precipices 
under fire, guns were hauled to mountain tops by 
main force, supplies were carried across chasms by 
cables suspended in mid-air, roads were constructed 



I08 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

through solid rock, tunnels were bored through moun- 
tains, soldiers fought among the high peaks in the dead 
of winter, fought in the heat of summer for the pos- 
session of a commanding height or a mountain pass, 
or a river ford. 

Besides the mountain barrier, there was a river, the 
Isonzo, that the Italians had to cross. It is not a 
large river, but the rather deep gorge made it more 
than difficult to cross in the face of the enemy. On 
the east bank of the Isonzo some few miles from the 
sea was the fortress city of Gorizia, held by the Aus- 
trians. This was the immediate objective of the 
Italians, a necessary step to the winning of Trieste. 
All through 19 15 and the first half of 19 16, they had 
been creeping toward the fortress. Then, on August 
7th, and suddenly, as it seemed to the world, they won 
the west bank of the river, which commanded the city, 
and on August 9th the Italians entered Gorizia. It 
was their first visible victory and created great en- 
thusiasm throughout Italy while it removed the 
stigma of apparent inaction from the Italian armies. 

But Gorizia was not Trieste nor was the way thither 
free. Very strong natural defenses still barred the 
advance and much remained to be done. During the 
rest of August the Italians prepared a new blow, an 
effort to push over the mountains to the lowlands near 
Trieste, where their superior numbers would be felt. 
In September they made the attempt and for days 
kept up the pressure. But the Italians were not to win 
such a victory in 19 16. All their strength could not 
overcome the Austrian defense, aided as it was by the 
rugged mountains. 

On August 27th Roumania declared war upon 
Austria-Hungary and Germany. Her advent into the 
conflict had been variously expected — longed for — ■ 
given up, according to the changing fortunes of the 
Entente Allies. Roumania, like Italy, had a long 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 109 

standing grievance against Austria-Hungary, in that 
more than three million Roumanians were subjects of 
the Dual Kingdom. Most of these were in the prov- 
ince of Transylvania, adjoining Roumania on her 
northwest frontier. There is no doubt but that she 
would have entered the war in 191 5 had it not been 
for the Russian defeat of that year and the failure of 
the Dardanelles. As it was, Roumania hesitated 
where Italy plunged. In the autumn of 191 5 she even 
seemed to lean toward the Central Powers, making a 
bargain whereby she supplied Germany with food and 
oil. 

But Roumania's interests were all with the Entente ; 
it was only through Austrian defeat that her aims 
could be attained. . Diplomats on both sides endeav- 
ored to enlist her aid, until' it came to be a saying that 
Roumania would not enter the war until six months 
before the end, when she would join the winning side. 

To Roumania this time seemed to have come. The 
German victories of the year before had not been re- 
peated, but instead, the Allies were winning on every 
front The Russians had just won their great tri- 
umph, the Germans had lost at Verdun and were 
losing on the Somme ; there was a large allied army at 
Salonica. The signal for Roumania's entry seems to 
have been the Italian capture of Gorizia. It is likely 
that the Roumanian leaders expected Italy to sweep 
on at once and engage all the Austrian reserves. 

The strategic situation of Roumania was one of great 
strength, provided troops, munitions and generalship 
were equal to the occasion. Roughly, the shape of the 
country was that of a triangle, with enemies on two 
sides, since Bulgaria also was a foe. But the wide 
Danube River formed one boundary and a mountain 
range the other. The strongest assurance of success 
seemed to be the proximity of Russia. The latter sup- 
posedly could send in a half million or more troops, 
which, added to the six hundred thousand of Rou- 



110 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

mania, seemed, to the world, to threaten the immediate 
defeat of the Central Powers. 

Two courses of action were possible for Roumania 
in an offensive campaign. First : She could strike 
southward against the Bulgarians- with the view of 
joining forces with the allied army at Salonica, thus 
cutting the Germanic Empire in two, and making the 
conquest of Bulgaria and Turkey certain. Roumania 
has been blamed for not following this course. But 
there were difficulties in it that seemed to bar the way. 
There was a doubt whether the Salonica army could 
render effective aid; and later events proved the wis- 
dom of the doubt. The Danube with its one bridge 
would be a danger in the rear of her army and, besides, 
there were the Balkan mountains to cross. 

Second : She could rest on the defensive along the 
southern frontier and attack on the northwest bound- 
ary; and this was the course Roumania followed. 
Self-interest called that way in that she would be 
occupying lands she claimed for her own. Instead 
of marching upon an enemy position, she would de- 
scend into a region almost undefended. The w r orld 
had hardly read of the new combatant before it also 
read that the Roumanians had invaded Hungary. 
There were only small garrisons to oppose them, and in 
a very short time the Roumanian army had overrun a 
territory larger than that which the Germans held in 
France. It seemed the beginning of the end. 

Germany w r as instantly besieged with clamors of 
help from Hungary, who had unexpectedly found an 
enemy at her back door. The German response was 
instantaneous. Mackensen went to Bulgaria to take 
charge of such forces as could be collected. In ten 
days he began an advance from the south, invading 
that portion of Roumania lying between the Danube 
and the Black Sea. He defeated two Roumanian 
corps left to defend the border, and menaced the heart 
of the country. Mackensen's advance threw the Rou- 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. Ill 

manians into confusion. They expected Russian aid 
for this part of the line ; Russian agents had promised 
a million soldiers, if necessary. But neither a million 
nor a half million Russians appeared to help Roumania. 
Revelations the following year showed that Stunner, 
the Russian premier and a pro-German, had deliber- 
ately betrayed the Roumanians ; had not only withheld 
the promised aid but had also retained much ammuni- 
tion that England had consigned to Roumania by way 
of Russia. There was a Russian army sent, but the 
cooperation was worse than faint-hearted. It was 
necessary to withdraw a part of the troops from Tran- 
sylvania. These measures succeeded in checking 
Mackensen's force and even drove it back somewhat. 
There were several battles on this front during Sep- 
tember. 

Meanwhile the Germans had prepared another blow. 
In less than a month after Roumania had declared war, 
a veteran German army came to the Transylvania 
region to deal with the invaders. It came so rapidly 
and unexpectedly that it seemed the Germans could 
raise armies by striking the ground. Here was seen 
again the valuable reserve army that had fought Rus- 
sia, Serbia, France, and Britain. This time it had a 
new commander, Von Falkenhayn, who had been Ger- 
man chief of staff until supplanted by Hindenburg. 
On September 29th he defeated the Roumanians in a 
great battle at Hermannstadt. This decided the fate 
of the invasion almost at once. The Roumanians be- 
gan to withdraw, pressed hard by the Germans. In 
two weeks all of Hungary was cleared of the invaders. 

Such a sudden reversal of fortune brought con- 
sternation to the Allies and a frenzy of fear to the 
Roumanians. The king appealed to the Allies to aid 
him, and not permit his country to suffer the fate of 
Serbia. But France and Britain were almost helpless 
in the situation. They had no geographical connec- 
tion, could not send direct aid. Only Russia was in 



112 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

a position to help, and the failure to do so effectively 
is a dark chapter in the closing history of the Russian 
bureaucracy. 

Roumania was now back inside her own frontiers, 
all hope of conquest gone, hoping only to withstand 
the enemy at the borders. They made one foray across 
the Danube early in October, but it was defeated. On 
October 21st, after a pause of some weeks, Mackensen 
resumed his advance in force, and quickly captured 
Constanza, on the Black Sea, Roumania's only good 
port. Fighting was now constant on both both fronts. 
Falkenhayn was pressing up toward the mountain 
passes, with less than one hundred miles separating 
his army from Mackensen's. From that time on, they 
were ever closing in upon the unfortunate Rouma- 
nians. The latter fought well, and it was not until 
November 20th that Falkenhayn succeeded in winning 
the passes. 

But once over, his progress was rapid; his armies 
spread out fan wise, sweeping all before them. On 
November 24th the famous Iron Gate of the Danube 
was captured. About the same time that Falkenhayn 
surmounted the passes, Mackensen crossed the Danube, 
and the space between the two German armies lessened 
daily until they were in touch. On November 28th 
the Roumanians evacuated Bucharest, the capital, and 
on December 6th, one hundred days after the declara- 
tion of war, Mackensen's armies entered Bucharest, 
virtually ending the campaign. 

The moral result of Germany's triumph over 
Roumania was felt by all the nations at war. Ger- 
many had rescued Hungary and Bulgaria from a new 
and sudden peril, had given her own people a brilliant 
victory to feed their hopes anew. She seemed equal 
to any situation. The military results were of con- 
sequence to none of the fighting nations except to 
Roumania herself; Germany was no better off than 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 113 

before. Some profit was found in the large supplies 
of food captured. 

The Allied army at Salonica was a puzzle during the 
year 191 6, and in 19 17 as well. It was an army with- 
out any purpose, apparently, except to bully Greece. 
Sent originally to help tne Serbians, it had remained 
after its failure to do so; chiefly because of a well- 
founded suspicion that Germany herself had designs 
on Salonica. It was by now a polyglot army indeed, 
including British and French soldiers, African troops, 
the re-equipped Serbian army, a division of Russian 
troops and Greek volunteers; all under command of a 
French general, Sarrail. There was a place for this 
army in the Allies' strategic plan for the year. Its 
natural course was to force its way through the Bul- 
garian army and cut the railroad to Constantinople. 
It did begin an offensive in the summer of 19 16, but 
it was only a sham offensive. 

When Roumania entered the war, all the world 
looked to see the -Salonica army spring into action, 
since its task was made easier by half. Bulgaria would 
soon be crushed as between two milestones — so the 
world thought. But the Roumanians exerted their 
strength elsewhere, and the Salonica army exerted no 
strength at all. In October and November some ac- 
tivity was seen, resulting in an advance by the Serbs, 
who regained a corner of their own land, including the 
city of Monastir. 

The reason for the fatal inaction of this army lay 
in two conditions. One of these was a lack of muni- 
tions. At no time in its existence did Sarrail's army 
have enough guns and shells to begin a real battle. 
Whether the French and English could not spare the 
munitions, or whether some intrigue prevented action, 
is likely to continue in doubt until the leaders of the 
war write their memoirs. 

The other cause for inaction was Greece. The 
Allies claimed a technical right to their occupancy of 



114 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

Greek soil, on the ground that they were helping Greece 
fulfill her treaty obligations to Serbia. But it was 
a wretched situation for all concerned. The King 
and a considerable party were hostile to the Allies and 
eager for the success of the Germans. The popular 
leader, Venizelos, and a large majority of the Greek 
people were favorable to the Allies. But so long as 
the King retained control of the army, the Entente 
force did not dare entangle itself in a campaign, lest 
it be struck in the back. 

Its 19 16 campaign consisted largely in making de- 
mands upon Greece, designed to safeguard its position. 
The first of these was that the Greek army withdraw 
from the proximity of Salonica, then, successively, the 
dismantling of the navy, the surrender of the telegraph 
system, the expulsion of German agents and, finally, 
the demobilization of the whole Greek army. In all 
these engagements the Entente was victorious. Dur- 
ing riots in November and December, French forces 
occupied Athens, but later they w T ere withdrawn. 
Altogether, the Greek situation did not hold a ray of 
light for any one. 

Of the other military events of the year, another 
Turkish attack on Suez is noted. It was as fruitless 
as the others had been. An event of some importance 
was a general revolt of the Arabs against Turkish 
overlordship. The Arabs were soon to be fighting 
beside the British. On the Tigris the British were 
quietly preparing a new expedition toward Bagdad ; 
but this did not get under way until the following 
year. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

ANOTHER WINTER OF DEADLOCK. 

Of the military events of the year not mentioned 
under the various campaigns are several of note. In 
December Marshal JorTre retired from the command 
of the French armies. It w r as rumored, probably with 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 15 

truth, that the office was tendered to Petain and then 
to Foch, and that each declined to assume responsibility 
unless they were given a free hand and full control 
of the Allied armies. But the British were not yet 
willing to subordinate their army to French command. 
It was fortunate that Foch awaited his hour instead of 
accepting a divided command. It would have led to 
his dismissal at the crisis. Neville, a general almost 
unknown, took command, and Foch was given inactive 
duties for the time. 

The aerial branches of all the armies had been mak- 
ing great progress. It was a never-ending contest 
among the belligerents to produce larger and swifter 
planes, to increase their carrying capacity, to lengthen 
their flights, to create tactics for squadrons and re- 
source in individual airmen. Photography from the 
air was becoming a vital part of the preparations for 
battle. Dropping bombs on trains, roads, ammuni- 
tion dumps, aerodromes, et cetera, was an everyday 
task. 

Combats in the air were of daily occurrence. Early 
in the war two German aviators, Boelke and Immel- 
mann, acquired fame by reason of the number of op- 
ponents they downed. Both of them met their death 
in the air. The French and British did not give indi- 
vidual prominence to their airmen to the extent that 
the Germans did, but the birdmen of both armies fully 
equalled the bravest and most skillful Teutons. From 
the time of the Somme fighting British planes gained 
increasing command of the air. 

The Germans persisted in their air raids of English 
and French cities. Time after time the towns and 
cities of eastern and southern England were bombed 
from aeroplanes and Zeppelins. During April Zeppe- 
lins raided London on four successive nights. The 
night of September 23d, and again two nights later, 
twelve Zeppelins sailed over the British capital. 
These were the greatest air raids made up to that time. 



Il6 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

The week of each month during which the moon 
made the landscape visible was^the time chosen by the 
Germans for their raids. From a thing of peace and 
pleasure, of beauty and romance, it became an ally of 
the merciless Hun. There are persons in England, 
who, to their dying day, will never see the full moon 
without feeling an involuntary thrill of dread. Dur- 
ing four years London and most of England spent 
their nights in darkness ; all street lights out and dwell- 
ing lights shrouded. There was hardly a week but 
they heard the warning signals that sent them to bomb- 
proof shelters. 

Much damage was done, but not so much as the 
Germans fancied. Millions of Germans believed that 
London had been laid in ruins, and they rejoiced. 
The most horrible incident of all the air raids was the 
killing of more than a score of children in one build- 
ing. But the British were beginning to master even 
the Zeppelins. At first they seemed immune from at- 
tack, but in 191 5 Lieutenant Robinson, in an aeroplane, 
destroyed the first Zeppelin, to the delight of all Eng- 
land. Late in 19 16 there was hardly a raid in which 
one or more of the huge craft were not brought down, 
and before 191 7 was over, the Germans abandoned the 
use of their gas bags and sent out only aeroplanes. 

The Allied armies, especially the British, were in- 
creasing in strength constantly. The British had seven 
hundred thousand casualties to replace, but this and 
more was done. The Canadian army overseas had 
grown until it numbered a quarter million, with four 
hundred thousand enlistments. The Anzacs were 
keeping pace with Canada. Of more importance than 
its numbers was the fact that the British army, through 
its experience on the field of battle, was becoming a 
mighty weapon. 

The greatest naval battle of modern times occurred 
in 191 6. On the last day of May both the British 
and German main fleets were abroad, near the coast 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 17 

of Denmark. Late in the day the advance guard of 
the British fleet sighted the enemy. Signaling the 
main fleet some miles away, Sir David Beatty, com- 
mander of the battle cruiser squadron, closed in with 
the intention of cutting off the enemy from his home 
port until the British dreadnaughts arrived. The 
cruisers of both sides began to exchange shots at a 
range of eleven miles, but they closed in to seven or 
eight miles, and later in the engagement the leading 
ships were only five miles apart. Hits were scored on 
each side and destroyers were sunk. Then the Queen 
Mary, a fine battle cruiser, sank so quick that the ship 
next in line sailed over the spot where she had floated 
a few moments previously. The main German fleet 
came in range, and Beatty's cruisers were outgunned. 
Only his skillful maneuvers saved him from a greater 
loss than he suffered. 

The grand fleet of Britain was coming up, and the 
leading ships began to fire. The Germans now de- 
cided to break off the engagement, which they were 
able to do, since night was closing in and visibility was 
limited to four or five miles during the last hours of 
daylight. During the night the fleets got out of touch 
with each other, and when morning came the Germans 
were not to be seen. 

The world was thunderstruck the day after the 
battle by a brief British bulletin stating the fact of the 
battle and announcing the loss of certain of their ships, 
aggregating about fifty thousand tons. No mention 
was made of a victory, and the world instantly assumed 
that the Germans had won a great naval triumph. 
In their haste, the Germans claimed as much. But 
disclosures later showed that they had lost fully as 
many ships as the British, and by reason of their false 
reports, suspicion was aroused that they were still 
concealing some of their losses. 

The conditions under which the battle was fought 
were all in favor of the Germans. The British ships 



Il8 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

were clearly outlined against the evening sky, while 
the Germans were shrouded in mist. Then, too, many 
of Britain's dreadnaughts did not fire a shot, arriving 
too late. This battle of Jutland, as it is known, was 
only an incident in the work of the British navy. But 
to the Germans it was a real defeat, since it repre- 
sented a failure to break the British blockade. The 
British w r ere left in control of the seas after the battle 
as fully as before, or even more so, in that a potential 
danger was removed. For the German ships were so 
badly battered that some of them were not repaired. 
The German high seas fleet did not venture into the 
North Sea again until a certain day more than two 
years later. 

Five days after this battle, another British cruiser 
was sunk under circumstances that made its loss almost 
as memorable as the greater action. The Hampshire, 
carrying Lord Kitchener, his staff and other officials, 
was sunk off the west coast of Scotland on the night 
of June 5th. It is likely that a mine and not a sub- 
marine was the cause. Lord Kitchener was en route 
to Russia to confer on the military situation. He was 
the soldier of highest rank to meet death during the 
war. 

The submarine warfare continued with increasing 
virulence. British measures to meet the undersea peril 
were also of growing effectiveness. From policy,* the 
British made no announcements concerning the U- 
boats sunk. The German sailors saw their comrades 
leave port, and they knew that many of them were 
never heard of again. Nevertheless, the Germans 
sank more and more ships. They increased the num- 
bers of their submarines and also the size and the cruis- 
ing radius. March and April saw renewed bursts of 
activity, as did the autumn months. The total of 
sinkings by submarines for 191 6 was more than twice 
as great as for 191 5, yet their effect on the war thus 
far was the slightest, except to increase the cost of it. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. ITQ 

As effective as several submarines were the few 
commerce raiders that managed to slip through the 
blockade. The most famous of these, the Moewe, 
sank or captured fifteen vessels in a short time, and 
then returned safely to port. 

In July, 19 1 6, a German submarine suddenly ap- 
peared in American waters. It was not armed, how- 
ever, but was a commercial vessel laden with goods of 
value. This craft, the Dcutschland, made a second 
trip to America, after which it disappeared until the 
war was over. In the autumn, a fighting U-boat, the 
U-53, made a brief call at Newport and then went to 
sea again. The following day it sank several merchant 
ships east of Narragansett. 

In summarizing 'the situation, the belligerents must 
have been somewhat bewildered by the way all their 
plans for 19 16 had been set at naught. The Germans 
had begun the year with the intention of ending the 
war, or at least bringing it to a bargaining stage, by one 
more terrific blow. They had delivered the blow but 
it had been parried; and instead of her enemies asking 
for terms, they had made a united, and, to a degree, 
successful attack, and she had been upon the defensive 
for the first time. Roumania had fallen, but the mili- 
tary prospects of Germany were not brighter, nor those 
of France and Britain made worse thereby. On the 
contrary, Germany's enemies were growing stronger 
and peace was not in sight. Peace was Germany's 
aim. She had successively promised peace by the 
winter of 1914, peace by the summer of 191 5, peace 
after Verdun ; and peace was not yet come. She must 
make her people a new promise. 

On their part, the Allies were equally confounded. 
While the military leaders had not expected to put an 
end to Germany's armies during 19 16, they had fully 
expected to take a long step toward victory, had ex- 
pected that, both geographically and in point of time, 
the end would be in sight. The year was now ended 



120 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

and not one of the Allies had a clear balance of profit. 
And even more discouraging was the outlook for the 
coming year, which was more gloomy than it had been 
a year previous. Their greatest asset was a united 
campaign upon all fronts, but it was almost certain 
that they could not repeat in 191 7 the plan they had 
followed in 19 16. The leaders had information that 
was not made public, and it led them to fear that Russia 
was about to make a separate peace. Even if this were 
averted, France and England must have realized that 
Russia could not or would not absorb German energy 
and Austrian armies as in the past; they must have 
known of Russian disorganization and Russian 
treachery, of the plots of the pro-German premier, 
Stunner, of the failure of Russian munitions and the 
cracking of Russian morale. 

But if the outlook was not clear, neither was it 
hopeless. There was not the slightest disposition to 
give up. In a moral sense, their position had become 
clearer. It was now understood by the man in the 
street, as well as by the statesmen in council, that Ger- 
many's ambition was to control Europe ; that German 
success would be a heavy blow to the democracy of 
the world and the freedom of nations. Although 
sinister work was even then going on in France in an 
attempt to undermine the morale of the people, yet 
the very peasants were enraged at the thought of peace 
without victory. The Englishman in the army or at 
home had no thought but to carry on, trusting to his 
leaders to find the road to victory. 

England had gone to war in high confidence that 
her weight would instantly turn the scales; she had 
continued it after that illusion passed, continued in the 
face of blunders and disasters, fought without equip- 
ment, never doubting but that British armies could 
not possibly lose. And now England was in her most 
dangerous mood, that of dogged courage that would 
stick in spite of hope and fear, in spite of enemy success 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 121 

and Allied failure, in spite of disaster real or threat- 
ened 

The Allied watchword — attrition — seemed to have 
failed. At a time when Germany was pressed hard 
on all fronts, she still had enough reserves to detach 
an army of perhaps half a million and sent it hundreds 
of miles away to dispose of a new enemy. The Allies 
were close to the hard facts of the situation ; they had 
not yet won the war and Germany might yet win it. 
If it came to a deadlock, Germany had the most pawns 
to lay upon the board. In the public press there was 
recognition of the fact that the war would almost cer- 
tainly last beyond 191 7; and the people bravely faced 
the knowledge that they could not hope for victory 
during the coming year. 

The military leaders made their plans for a two or 
three years' campaign. The year 19 17 would be one 
of hard fighting, in the plans of British, French, and 
Italian leaders. There were projects for campaigns 
in France and Flanders that might or might not drive 
the Germans back to the frontier. But there was no 
illusion, no real hope of immediate victory. Yet it 
was victory the Allies were determined to have; not 
a bargained truce nor a restoration of 1914 conditions, 
but a full and complete victory. 

The political events of the winter were molded by 
the war needs and situation. In France the cabinet 
was reorganized, but it was to change yet again before 
the end. In Great Britain the Asquith cabinet fell in 
December. Of eight years' standing, it had taken on 
its war duties as it handled ordinary affairs ; and when 
the w r ar did not go well, the cabinet was patched and 
patched again. The offices were bandied about among 
Lloyd George, Carson, Churchill, Balfour, Law and 
others. Public opinion became hostile after the Gal- 
lipoli and Balkan failures. The disaster to Roumania 
was the last straw. The immediate cause of the 
change was the demand of Lloyd George that the 



122 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

direction of the war be taken from the cabinet as a 
whole and given to a council of five members. After 
weeks of parley, Asquith resigned, and upon the failure 
of Bonar Law to take the reins, Lloyd George became 
the British premier. In a sense, the nation gave itself 
into his hands. He was the one leader who saw clearly 
and was also capable, who could lead the laboring 
classes as well as the financial and business powers. 

One of the political measures of the Entente was 
an economical union, formed as an additional weapon 
against Germany. In the event that they would not 
be able to effect satisfactory peace terms, it was their 
intention to so control the world's business, especially 
the raw materials of manufacturing, that Germany 
would be left to stand alone, both in buying and sell- 
ing. In answer to this, the German Chancellor de- 
clared that Germany would force trade equality when 
the time should come to make a peace treaty. 

Another commercial measure was the issuance of 
a "black list" of neutral firms having trade connections 
with the enemy. This list contained the names of 
eighty-two United States firms, with whom British 
and French subjects were forbidden to deal. 

The Allies were making good use of their control 
of the seas. They were buying larger and larger 
quantities of all supplies from all countries, but espe- 
cially from the United States, since it was the one 
neutral country that could furnish them with such 
things as automobiles, guns, cotton, and meat. Brit- 
ain's own factories had been turned largely to the 
making of war supplies. The industrial district of 
France was in ruins, and she was compelled to rely 
upon England for some of her needs. Half of the 
coal used by France came from English mines. Italy 
had to import nearly all her coal, and warnings came 
from the Italian government that unless large supplies 
of coal, steel, and other essentials of war were given, 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 123 

they would be seriously handicapped on the field of 
battle. 

Although peace was beyond the horizon, there was 
no lack of discussion of peace and peace terms in 
Entente, Teutonic and neutral countries. From the 
outbreak of war, pacifists in all lands advocated peace 
upon the basis that all belligerents alike were tempo- 
rarily insane and that the soldiers should lay down 
their arms and go home. This view culminated in 
the so-called Ford Peace Party of 191 5, that was to 
"have the boys out of the trenches by Christmas." 

The enemy statesmen bombarded one another with 
long-distance speeches. If Bethmann-Hollweg de- 
clared in the Reichstag that only the enemy's demands 
obstructed peace, he was answered by Lloyd George 
or Balfour in the House of Commons, or by Briand in 
the French Senate. Neither side made their peace 
demands known in set terms ; the Allies spoke of "res- 
titution, reparation and guarantees," while Hindenburg 
boomed sonorous phrases concerning "a strong Ger- 
man peace," and the Kaiser promised his people "a 
peace commensurate with your sacrifices." The Pope 
and President Wilson each offered his services as 
mediator, but without success. 

All the world was more or less surprised when, on 
December 12th, less than a week after the successful 
termination of the Roumanian campaign, the German 
Chancellor announced that Germany was ready to enter 
into peace negotiations. He communicated this fact 
to several neutral governments, asking them to forward 
his suggestion to the Entente Allies. He announced 
no terms, stating that these would be communicated 
only upon the enemy's acceptance of a parley. He let 
it be understood, however, that Germany had no in- 
tention of imposing the conditions of a conqueror, 
only saying that the situation held an appropriate basis 
for a lasting peace. 

With one accord, the Allies, including Russia, de- 



124 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

clined to entertain the suggestion. It was plain to all 
that there was no "appropriate basis" for peace; that 
such conditions as Germany would offer would not be 
acceptable; that neither side was beaten to the extent 
that it would accept the terms of the other. In their 
reply the Allies intimated as much, saying that nego- 
tiations were useless at that time. They took the oc- 
casion to restate their own terms in a very general way, 
which were understood to include the cession of Alsace 
and Lorraine, the restoration of Belgium, France, 
Serbia, Roumania, and Poland; indemnities for de- 
struction, the satisfaction of Italian claims, changes 
in the Turkish Empire ; in short, they held to the terms 
of a victor, whereas they had not yet won the victory. 
It was apparent that an agreement was hopeless. 

In making the offer of peace, Germany had no hope 
of its being accepted ; she had other ends in view. One 
of them was to keep her own people satisfied that they 
were fighting a ring of enemies that planned to destroy 
the Fatherland. The Allied refusal of peace was pro- 
claimed as proof of this. A second aim was to in- 
fluence neutrals, especially the United States. The 
latter had shown increasing signs of impatience with 
Germany's methods. If she could put herself in the 
attitude of wanting peace, and put her enemies in the 
position of wanting war, she might hope to win more 
sympathy in America. A third aim was to have an 
excuse for the inauguration of still more brutal meth- 
ods of warfare on sea and land. 

The greatest motive was to create dissension in the 
ranks of her enemies. It was evident that all peoples 
were more than weary of war. If Germany could 
instill a belief in the minds of the common people of 
Italy, France, Britain, and Russia that she was making 
a sincere offer of an honest peace, and that their own 
governments were pursuing a conqueror's course for 
a conqueror's purpose, then Germany would profit 
more by the refusal of her offer than by the acceptance 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 12$ 

of it. If she could convince any party, socialist or 
otherwise, in enemy countries, that she was in earnest 
in offering peace, her purpose was won. And she did 
succeed. There is no doubt but that the Russian dis- 
integration was due in part to Germany's peace offer. 
The Russian people wanted peace ; they cared nothing 
for Trentino, Alsace, submarines, embargoes, indem- 
nities, and they had lost hope of getting Constanti- 
nople. Seeing the hand of peace, certain elements be- 
gan a campaign to end the war. Several revolutions 
were to come and go before this element emerged from 
the confusion and grasped the supreme power; but it 
came in time. By a soft word Germany disposed of 
one of her three chief enemies. Italy, too, was to 
suffer as a direct result of Germany's peace offensive. 

There were results in every country from the peace 
move. It gave support to those who believed that 
neither side could win a full victory and that it was 
better to stop before exhaustion. This was the 
dangerous phase of the peace movement in France and 
Britain. It was the generally accepted view in 
America at this time, where prominent men declared 
that it was a pity to continue when neither side could 
win. 

If a single munition factory lessened its output with 
the idea that peace was near — Germany had won a 
victory. If the soldiers in the trenches, the recruits 
in training, the workers in the mills and mines, the 
seamen who braved the torpedoes, were filled in any 
degree with a longing for peace at any price, or with 
dissatisfaction with their government, Germany had 
won the equivalent of a campaign. 

Germany's proposal was followed shortly by one 
from President Wilson, also suggesting peace negotia- 
tions. Mr. Wilson was careful to say that his note 
was not caused nor influenced by the German proposal. 
He suggested that all nations state their war aims 
clearly as a first step toward peace. One phrase of 



126 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

his note aroused much criticism from the Entente; he 
said that both sides were fighting- for substantially the 
same aims. This brought forth some bitter comment 
in France and Britain, where the people felt that they 
were fighting for liberty — America's and the world's 
as well as their own. About a month later, in an 
address in the Senate, Mr. Wilson referred to his pro- 
posal, saying that it implied a "peace without victory," 
meaning that it was not desirable that one side should 
prevail and impose terms upon the other. This met 
with even less favor in Europe. 

And now with her peace trap set, Germany made 
her military plans. Like the Entente leaders, her 
generals were aware that the war would almost cer- 
tainly continue into 1918, if not longer, and they made 
their plans accordingly. No Verdun smash was sched- 
uled for the coming year. Germany could not afford 
another defeat like that. Not even a new sweep into 
Russia was in prospect. Germany had other means of 
winning there; she meant to make the Russians fight 
her battles. 

It was certain that Britain would continue her 
offensive begun on the Somme, that Germany would 
have to* defend her lines against the utmost strength 
of the British armies. This, the general staff under- 
took to do; planning for the first time a defensive 
campaign upon all the main fronts, with the full pur- 
pose of resuming the offensive when other plans ma- 
tured. 

But Germany was not to be entirely on the defen- 
sive; instead she planned a deadly blow at her chief 
enemy — England. She had determined to begin an 
increased submarine warfare without any restrictions 
whatever, in the hope of compelling Britain to sue for 
peace. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 127 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE SUBMARINE CAMPAIGN OF I917. 

At the beginning of the war Germany had less than 
fifty submarines ; England twice as many. But Brit- 
ish submarines seldom had a target, while the German 
boats had the commerce of the world to prey upon. 
Submarines soon became synonymous with Germany. 

The sinking of the Lusitania marked the dividing 
line between the strictly naval use of the submarine 
and its course of murder and piracy. This ghastly 
event burst so unexpectedly upon the world as to for- 
ever fix it as one of the great crimes of history. It 
brought the United States into the war, and, in a very 
real sense, it brought her into the war immediately. 
There was a loud demand for instant warfare on the 
part of many Americans, led by Theodore Roosevelt. 
But the President felt that the majority of the people 
did not desire war, and he chose to attain his ends by 
peaceful means. And then began the long series of 
notes that often excited derision, but which served a 
great purpose, that of clearly defining the issue be- 
tween the United States and Germany. 

The United States government in its notes de- 
nounced the sinking of merchant and passenger ships, 
unless the lives of crew and passengers should be safe- 
guarded. This was in effect to deny to the submarine 
the fight to sink such vessels, since it could not care 
for a thousand or even a hundred people. Germany's 
replies were evasive, seeking to lay the blame upon 
England's blockade. After months of controversy 
the Lusitania question seemed to be on the point of 
settlement, when early in 191 6, the French steamer 
Sussex was torpedoed and several Americans killed. 
The vessel was not sunk, and investigation proved that 
a German torpedo had struck her. And now the ques- 



128 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

tion was thrown open again. Mr. Wilson very sharply- 
asked the intentions of the German government, 
warning it that the United States would be compelled 
to sever relations if submarines continued to sink un- 
armed ships. In course of time a promise was forth- 
coming that Germany would sink no more ships with- 
out warning and without aiding passengers and crew 
to escape. The danger of war seemed averted and the 
success of Mr. Wilson's policy was the deciding factor 
in the presidential campaign of 191 6. "He kept us 
out of war" was the slogan that won the election. 

The American elections were anxiously awaited by 
the German leaders. There was a strong party in 
Germany that from the very first favored an indis- 
criminate submarine warfare. The government — •■ 
Kaiser — Chancellor — generals — was in favor of it, 
too, to the extent of rushing the construction of new 
U-boats by the score, meanwhile feeling the pulse of 
the world to decide for or against the new campaign. 
The one neutral nation the German leaders watched 
was the United States, as the only remaining nation 
whose friendship or hostility mattered. The Ameri- 
can wrath over the Lusitania led to the suppression of 
the party of frightfulness headed by Tirpitz, for the 
time. The long controversy seemed, to Germany, to 
align Americans definitely on the side of peace, and 
the result of the election confirmed their notion that 
America would not fight. They saw the reelection of 
a president who was apparently most unwilling to 
lead the nation into war, whose success was undoubt- 
edly due to that very fact. 

Whether Germany might have withheld her hand 
under different circumstances is not known, but Mr, 
Wilson's reelection seemed to be the signal for a re- 
newed outburst of undersea activity. December, 19 16, 
and January, 191 7, saw a sudden gain in sinkings, 
nearly four hundred thousand tons of shipping being 
destroyed each month. The Germans were trying out 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 29 

their new U-boats. On the last day of January, 
BernstorfT, the German ambassador, handed to the 
State Department at Washington a note announcing 
that on the following day the Germans would inaugu- 
rate a new policy concerning submarines. A zone was 
demarked embracing all the water around the British 
Isle, the entire coast of France and all of the Medi- 
terranean except a channel leading to Greece. Within 
this zone all enemy ships of any status, and all neutral 
vessels suspected of carrying contraband, would be 
sunk without warning. 

Here was no* time for parley. Germany had 
plunged. All regard for the lives of noncombatants 
was put aside, all the valuable ships of friendly nations 
were consigned to destruction, all her promises to 
President Wilson were broken in the deliberate desire 
to win the war by any means. It was not a suddenly 
adopted policy. The Germans had long considered it, 
but had never possessed the resources in U-boats to 
carry it out until this time. It was definitely decided 
upon many weeks before it actually began, and agents 
the world over were notified, and were instructed not 
to announce it until January 31st. 

In America, the announcement came as a blow. It 
was apparent that war would almost surely follow. 
Germany had purposely left no time for diplomatic 
exchanges. Mr. Wilson's action was prompt; he at 
once severed relations, as he had warned BernstorfT 
he would do. On Febraury 3d, he addressed a joint 
assembly of Congress announcing his action and saying 
that the course of events would await actual hostility 
— "an overt act" — on the part of Germany, which he 
prayed would not come. 

Germany's submarine policy was hailed by the Allies 
as a last desperate gambler's cast, as a virtual admis- 
sion of defeat on land. This was only partly true; 
Germany's situation was gloomy, but not as bad as 
her enemies saw it. The Kaiser had doubtless given 



I3O HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

up hope of an immediate peace with Russia, but his 
agents promised to attain the same end during that 
present year. Meanwhile his generals needed time for 
their plans to mature — plans that would startle the 
world a year hence. The German army was bidden 
to hold on until the submarine won the war. 

In beginning a ruthless sea policy Germany knew 
she would bring down upon herself the enmity of the 
remaining nations of the world, but all this cast in the 
scales did not balance the expected gains. Nowhere 
in Europe was there a possible new enemy; Holland 
and Denmark dared not move, Spain was negligible, 
Norway and Sweden would not fight. Of the great 
nations, only the United States could be expected to 
take any action. And Germany did not fear the 
United States. She was so confident of an early vic- 
tory that she discounted any move by America. 
Even if the war were to continue into the following 
year, Germany saw no reason to fear America. The 
American navy was known to be first-class, but it 
could hardly add to the admitted supremacy of Brit- 
ain's sea power on the ocean surface, and Germany 
disdained the American army. It was known to num- 
ber less than forty thousand trained men, after the 
necessary forces for the Philippines, Mexican border, 
forts, etc., were subtracted. And this was less than 
one army corps of the hundred Germany possessed. 
It was inconceivable that America could raise an 
effective army. She had no officers save for the 
small army, and an army without officers is a mob. 
Germany had one hundred and fifty thousand officers, 
and she had none too many. Her generals promised 
the statesmen that they could safely proceed without 
any misgiving as to America. 

The one impelling reason for Germany's submarine 
campaign was Great Britain. Germany looked over 
the war map, and was conscious that she had beaten 
her enemies time after time, and yet she was unable 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. I3I 

to enforce peace because of Britain. It was Britain 
who kept the war going ; who backed Italy and Russia, 
who supplied the guns and shells for each new cam- 
paign; who brought from abroad the vital supplies — 
food, machines, horses, and mules. It was Britain 
who financed every one of her enemies. Germany was 
confident that France could not stand a month without 
Britain. And Britain was growing ever stronger ; her 
soldiers, whom Germany had scorned as she now 
scorned the Americans, had now become a mighty 
.army, and Germany saw before her a score of battles as 
terrible as the Somme had been, in which she would 
have to face the might of the British army. If only 
Britain could be beaten the game was won, and, in 
spite of Britain's insular position, Germany believed 
she could be beaten. 

It was a well-known fact that England depended on 
her ships for the necessities of life. She was a great 
manufacturing nation, but the bulk of the materials 
for her workmen came from abroad, from South 
Africa, from India, Egypt, China, from South 
America, from the United States, and Canada. And 
more vital than materials for mills was food. Only 
a fraction of the food needed for the millions in the 
British Isles was grown at home; three-fourths of it 
came from abroad ; meat from Chicago ; wheat from 
Canada, Argentine, and Australia; sugar from the 
West and East Indies. The British laborer's meals 
came from the ends of the earth, and they came by 
ship. 

It was obvious that if Germany could shut her 
enemy off from the world, she would be compelled to 
ask for mercy ; she could not live three months on the 
products of her own soil. Germany aimed to isolate 
her with submarines and raiders. Many a ship laden 
with wheat or sugar or meat had been sunk almost 
within sight of port. But thus far her submarines 
had been limited in number, and also limited by the 



132 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

moral opinion of the world. To throw off this moral 
restraint was a terrible thing; to plunge into the future 
bearing the condemnation of the world was not invit- 
ing. But Germany saw supreme power ahead, saw a 
new day when there would be no mighty British Em- 
pire to thwart her, and she took the plunge with the 
full hope of conquering absolutely her one great enemy. 

She would starve Britain into submission, starve her 
into giving up her navy, starve her into helplessness 
and ruin. 

In deciding to include neutral as well as enemy 
vessels in her ruthless destruction, Germany meant to 
regain some of the heavy loss caused by her forced 
absence from the world's commercial mark. Dutch, 
Norwegian, and American ships had helped themselves 
to the trade of Germany's former customers, and in 
sinking vessels of these and other nations she would 
not only destroy cargoes bound for England or France, 
but would also destroy the shipping of rival nations. 
She could attain commercial supremacy by the simple, 
if terrible, means of destroying the ships of all other 
nations. 

And now the stage was set for the last act but two 
of the great war, a phase that was to excel, if possible, 
all others in malice and wrath and bitterness, in cruelty, 
dishonor — and failure. Out into the dark waters 
Germany sent her boats, into the North Sea, the Irish 
Sea, the broad Atlantic, the Bay of Biscay, all along 
the channels of shipping, while from the Adriatic 
ports, German and Austrian submarines gathered near 
every port of France, Italy, and Egypt. And now let 
every mariner be wary, for he knows not what instant 
his boat may feel the shock of a shell or the rending 
burst of a torpedo ! Let him sail by night with all lights 
shrouded, let him speed by day with eyes keen for 
signs of the lurking assassin. Let not women and 
children look to German sailors for mercy, for they 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 33 

have cast mercy behind them. Let them rather throw 
themselves into the sea. 

The success of the submarines was instantly seen in 
the tremendous number of ships that were sent to the 
bottom. The sinkings jumped at once in a way that 
promised to fulfill the boast of the Germans that they 
would sink a million tons a month; that promised 
almost to fulfill Tirpitz's boast that he would bring 
England to her knees in three months. From three to 
ten ships were sunk every day. The seriousness of 
this is realized when it is remembered that two-thirds 
or more of these ships were large vessels, many of 
them over five thousand tons gross. Let those who 
live on or visit the seacoast gaze upon a five-thousand- 
ton vessel; larger than the steamer Governor that 
enters all the Pacific ports, or one of the West Indies 
boats sailing from New York, and then reflect that 
the equivalent of three thousand of such ships was 
sunk during the war. 

During the first eighteen days of February, 19 17, 
one hundred and thirty-four ships were sent to the 
bottom; thirty-one of these were sailing vessels, four- 
teen were small, and forty-seven large steamships. 
This is compared with the same period in January 
when sixty-seven ships, or exactly half, were sunk. 
And January was a month of big harvest for U-boats. 
For the first quarter of 191 7, ships with a tonnage 
of 1,619,373 were sunk, or more than three times 
as much as for the same period of 19 16. The second 
quarter of 1917, 2,236,934 tons were destroyed. 
This was the high period of all the war. The loss of 
the ships was not so serious as the loss of cargo space. 
If the Allies could have replaced all the ships lost, 
they could have faced the destruction with calmness. 
But ships, meaning cargo space, meaning transporta- 
tion, meaning vital supplies, were badly needed. And 
the ships were going down almost hourly. A cargo 
of sugar, a shipload of grain from Argentine, a liner 



134 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

deep laden with munitions, all lost in one day meant 
not only the loss of those ships and their cargoes, but 
the loss of transportation for future loads. The world 
anxiously watched for the daily news of submarines, 
for the world was vitally interested. It was life and 
death to the European countries ; for the first time in 
hundreds of years all Europe was hungry. And the 
ships carrying food were being sunk, three yesterday, 
eight to-day — how many to-morrow? Belgium was 
hungrier, for twelve relief ships carrying food from 
America were sunk during February, March, and 
April. The Germans were hungry — they would bring 
hunger to the rest of the world. Holland was feel- 
ing the pinch of hunger, and six of her ships laden 
with grain had just been sunk in the North Sea. 
Norway was hungry, and she was losing ships by the 
hundred. France was hungry, and her food supply 
from America was being cut off, a shipload to-day, 
another to-morrow. Italy, too, was hungry, and ships 
were becoming scarcer every week. All of Europe 
was hungry and likely to be hungrier. Forgotten 
were the wants of other days of fine clothes, of honors, 
the luxuries that had seemed so necessary — the world 
was hungry. 

Would Britain be hungry, too? There lay the crux 
of the matter. If Germany could bring hunger, 
severe hunger, to Britain,. her war was won. And the 
U-boats, lynx-eyed, swarmed in the waters around 
Britain sinking every ship that they could reach. 
They were more and more successful as the weeks 
went by. The first week in March twenty-three Brit- 
ish ships alone were sunk, the last week in March it 
was twenty-five, the first week in April it mounted to 
thirty-one. Then in the third week in April, the 
enormous number of fifty-five British ships were sunk 
— a vessel destroyed every three hours. Forty of 
these were large steamers. Here was enough shipping 1 
to supply an army, almost. The following weeks, de- 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 35 

struction was nearly as great, fifty-one vessels, while 
the third week they numbered forty-six. During this 
three weeks' period there were one hundred and fifty- 
two British vessels and approximately ninety ships 
of other nations sunk — two hundred and forty in 
round numbers — more than eleven daily, a ship sunk 
almost every two hours. 

Would Britain be hungry? It appeared so. Brit- 
ain cut down her food allowance, tightened her belt, 
gave up luxuries, denied herself unnecessary imports 
that aft available cargo space might be used for essen- 
tials. A public food controller was named, and Brit- 
ons surrendered their personal liberty to the extent 
of obeying the food regulations. Meanwhile they 
kept a brave, if stern, face toward the enemy. The 
soldiers on the firing line were fed, all the workers 
were fed. No one in Britain was actually hungry. 
But the surplus stores of food were watched. Meas- 
ures to feed her population and at the same time save 
shipping were taken. Every available bit of land was 
put under cultivation. Estates that had been carefully 
kept for generations, open parks, commons — all land 
was used to grow food. 

In the meantime the British and French navies, and 
after May, the American navy, were fighting the sub- 
marines, looking for them day and night. They found 
many a U-boat that then and there ended its career. 
The British navy was resourceful in its difficult work. 
It made hug"e nets that extended for miles ; many a 
diver was entangled in them. They laid traps and 
captured some of the enemy, submarine and crew. 
One hundred thousand British seamen, fishermen, 
trawlers, longshormen, were enlisted in special sub- 
marine work. These men sailed the North Sea in 
small vessels, armed with small rapid-fire guns. They 
laid the nets and mine fields, made the traps, performed 
a score of tasks. A dangerous but successful means 
of combating the hidden enemy was to fit out a vessel, 



I36 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

disguised as a merchant ship. These vessels cruised 
about until attacked by a submarine. A "panic crew" 
took to the boats, and then the enemy, to save the 
expensive torpedoes, approached to board the "aban- 
doned" ship. When they were close enough a con- 
cealed crew opened fire upon the U-boat, and usually 
it was the end of that diver. But the most successful 
means of combating the enemy were the swift de- 
stroyers. Through their intelligence system, the Eng- 
lish navy usually knew how many submarines were 
out, and about where they were. The destroyers 
traversed hundreds of miles of water daily, while 
aeroplanes and balloons watched for the dark spots in 
the water. It was a battle royal such as the British 
navy in its centuries of activity had never before ex- 
perienced. 

As a preventive measure, the incoming and outgoing 
ships were arranged in convoys, as far as the number 
of destroyers would permit. The value of the convoy 
system is shown in the fact that it was only rarely that 
a transport was sunk. The British could not convoy 
all their merchant ships because they lacked destroyers. 
They had five thousand vessels under naval command, 
but the vast majority were small vessels unfitted for 
convoy duty upon the stormy Atlantic. Another 
means of combating U-boats was by raiding their 
bases. Many times the ports of Belgium, occupied by 
the Germans, were bombarded from sea and air, and 
often with good effect. But it was not possible to 
prevent entirely the activity of U-boats. 

The submarines continued their deadly work. 
Week by week the sinkings continued, while the Ger- 
man leaders awarded iron crosses to the commanders 
and continued to proclaim the success of the policy. 
A number of war vessels, including French and British 
battleships, fell victim to the U-boats. Nothing es- 
caped that came within their power. It was the Ger- 
man's particular delight to destroy a British fishing 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. I37 

boat fifty miles from land, and set the crew adrift, 
if they did not wantonly sink them with their ship. 
They attacked and sometimes sank hospital ships. 
The Astoria was sunk on March 20th with a loss of 
seventy people, mostly nurses. More than half of the 
ships sunk were British. The English merchant ma- 
rine in 19 14 totaled about twenty million tons, gross. 
More than nine millions were sunk during the war. 
Norway lost eight hundred and thirty-one vessels with 
a tonnage of one and one-quarter millions, and several 
hundred sailors. In April alone seventy-five Nor- 
wegian ships were lost and one hundred sailors 
drowned. More than six thousand English ships, in- 
cluding fishing vessels, were sunk, and the loss of lives, 
excluding naval losses, was over fifteen thousand. 
One U-boat is said to have sunk one hundred and 
twenty-six vessels. 

The high month of sinkings was April; thereafter 
they began to decline. But still the destruction con- 
tinued faster than the construction of new ships, and 
the shortage of cargo space became constantly greater, 
and the specter of hunger ever more alarming. But 
after the world's harvest of 19 17 the crisis was past. 
The first week of November only one large British 
vessel was sunk. It was about this time that certain 
American newspapers, all controlled by one publisher, 
called upon America "to wake up to the fact that Eng- 
land was losing the war and Germany winning it by 
means of her submarines; that the English navy had 
utterly failed to handle the situation; that Britain was 
concealing the facts of the war." 

The destruction lessened as the number of U-boats 
diminished. In September and October there was a 
serious mutiny of German seamen against the sub- 
marine service. It had become so deadly that they 
rebelled against it. Scores of U-boats never went 
back to port, and the loss of a submarine usually meant 
the death of all her crew, an especially terrible death. 



I38 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

Nearly six thousand German sailors were lost in the 
U-boat campaign, which explains the mutiny. 

What will history's verdict be upon the submarine 
campaign? It did not help Germany; it destroyed 
her power. It did not destroy the military or naval 
power of Great Britain or the Allies; it did not even 
affect them materially. It did not lessen in the slight- 
est degree the British blockade, nor did it weaken the 
Allied armies in France and Belgium, either in spirit 
or in supplies. There was not a German individual 
whom it helped ; not a phase of Germany's campaign 
that it bettered. It was a terrible failure for Germany. 
And finally brought the United States into the war. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

AMERICA ENTERS THE WAR. 

In 19 14 only alarmists foresaw American partici- 
pation in the war, and they foresaw it only because 
they were alarmists. In the minds of the people there 
was no reason for going to war over the quarrels of 
European nations. On the contrary, the general feel- 
ing was one of thankfulness that we were not involved. 
All the years of preparedness had not served to save 
Europe from catastrophe, and Americans rejoiced in 
their own unpreparedness. There was a general out- 
burst of rejoicing and congratulation over our demo- 
cratic institutions that made a war of aggression im- 
possible, and over our geographical situation that made 
a war of defense unnecessary. There was a proud 
comparison of our situation with that of unfortunate 
Europe ; there was condemnation of secret diplomacy, 
of kings and emperors, of autocracy and militarism. 
The general feeling was that Europe had gone mad. 
It seemed the height of imbecility for the nations to 
pour out their blood, to waste their w r ealth and sacri- 
fice their future in a gigantic war. There was sym- 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. I39 

pathy for Belgium as an innocent victim, there was 
hope and fear for France, there was a thrill for Great 
Britain on the part of those with British blood in 
their veins. There was almost unanimous condemna- 
tion for Germany. She seemed a little more mad than 
the other nations, and we assumed her early defeat. 

This state of mind lingered with different persons 
for varying lengths of time. To the millions of the 
nation there came only slowly the understanding that 
neither America nor any other democratic nation could 
live in peace and safety with Germany. In some, the 
recognition did not come until we were actually at war. 
But with others there was early disillusionment. To 
men of keen mind, and of training in public affairs — 
men whom Theodore Roosevelt and President Wilson 
typified — the German atrocities and German submarine 
policy foreshadowed a very grave future for the world 
and for the country. To them the sinking of the Lusi- 
tania was a more terrible event than was implied in the 
immediate consequences, the death of hundreds of 
innocent people. It made further destruction and 
death, and finally war, for our country almost certain. 
The past and the future were sharply divided by that 
event of the 7th of May, 19 15. It marked the end of 
the era in which America could live by herself; it 
promised to thrust her into the whirlpool of interna- 
tional rivalry. The actions of the two leaders were 
typical of two factions of the nation : Roosevelt and 
a minority of the people were in favor of immediate 
war; Wilson and a great majority were for peace, if 
it were possible to maintain peace. 

But if America still desired peace the sinking of the 
Lusitania was the cause of a long step toward war, in 
the minds of even the most pacific Americans. It 
brought out clearly the justice of the Entente Allies' 
cause ; it demonstrated that America ' was no longer 
isolated from European quarrels, nor unconcerned 
with world events. From that day the feeling against 



140 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

Germany grew. A foundation had been laid upon 
which every succeeding event was cemented, raising 
an ever higher tower of wrath against Germany. But 
America continued to favor peace until peace could 
no longer be maintained with honor, until war was 
thrust upon her. 

It was not long before it became known that the mur- 
der of Americans on the Lusitania was not the only 
hostile act, nor the first, that Germany had committed 
against the United States. The list of her offenses and 
crimes is a long one. Years before the war she prepared 
for the success of her armies and her navy by sending 
spies to every important country in the world. These 
agents established themselves, became well-known and 
respected citizens of long standing. Sometimes they 
were her consular agents or members of German mer- 
cantile firms, often they were apparently anything but 
German. America received her share of these paid 
servants of Wilhelmstrasse. New York was infested 
with them, Washington gave them work and a free 
hand. They were bound together in an organization 
as rigid and mandatory as only the Prussians could 
command. Some of these agents confined their ac- 
tivities to the simplest work of a spy, that of obtain- 
ing information. Before the war there was little at- 
tempt to veil any of the United States governmental 
affairs in secrecy, and as a consequence, the German 
foreign office knew much more about our affairs than 
did the average citizen. Other agents were primed 
for particular tasks, and perhaps bided their time for 
months and years. Still another class called for spe- 
cial talent, that of spreading propaganda. To one 
man would be given publicity work of the newspapers, 
another was sent to organize peace societies, a per- 
suasive gentleman appeared in Arizona or Montana 
as an I. W. W. leader. Especially skilled men went 
to Mexico to create trouble for the United States. 
"Honest humanitarians" worked with Irish agitators 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. I4I 

to fan the flame of hatred against England. 'Among 
their projects was one to incite a negro uprising in our 
Southern States, but they had not the slightest success, 
unless the East St. Louis riot in 191^ was of their 
doing. 

The great aim of the Germans in the publicity 
phases of their work was to win the support of the 
German-Americans. There were several millions of 
German-born citizens, many more millions whose par- 
ents were German-born. Germany counted heavily 
upon the support of these people; to her all Germans 
owed their first duty to the Fatherland. It was hoped 
and believed that the Germanic population would pre- 
vent any hostile acts by the United States, or, in the 
event of war, they would cripple the power of the 
government by their united influence. The chief 
means used to win the support of German-Americans 
was through the press. Well placed, intelligent agents 
were able to control a large number of unsuspecting, 
well meaning newspapers, both German and English. 
The boldest, and, for a time, the most successful agency 
of the German cause, was a weekly periodical that 
began its career in New York City simultaneously with 
the war. This paper invested itself with all the at- 
mosphere and dignity of the highest plane of Ameri- 
canism and proceeded to demand for Germany and her 
allies the full support of Americans; it ventured to 
dictate to the government the course of action whereby 
Britain should be shorn of power; it lauded the sink- 
ing of the Liisitania, and tried to prove that it was 
a British crime; it sneered at the American govern- 
ment and praised the forbearance and humanity of 
Germany's statesmen. For a year or so it fairly car- 
ried German-American opinion with it. But, like most 
German agencies, it lacked the important virtues, truth 
and justice. 

The mythical five hundred thousand German reserv- 
ists that a certain German official informed Mr. Ger- 



142 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

ard were to throttle America, never appeared to grace 
the five hundred thousand lamp-posts that awaited 
them. But the actual crimes committed in Germany's 
behalf were of no small number. The American 
secret service performed some wonderful feats of de- 
tection and prevention of German acts, among others 
the prevention of the blowing up of the Welland Canal, 
of the destruction of vessels by means of bombs 
placed in holds; the saving of many factories devoted 
to war supplies. Its work in detecting the secret 
codes of spies was especially valuable. It was not 
able to prevent all the crimes of the enemy's agents. 
A number of powder mills were destroyed under cir- 
cumstances that left no doubt as to the cause. The 
United States agents traced these events straight to 
the German embassy and to the machinations of Von 
Papen and Boy-Ed, its naval and military attaches. 
These officers were withdrawn in December, 191 5, at 
America's request. 

These acts soon made clear to the leaders of the 
nation what manner of friend was Germany, but to 
the country at large, not so well informed, events 
seemed to move in the path of peace. Reference has 
been made in the previous chapter to the series of 
notes that followed the Lusitania horror, and to the 
renewed sharpness of the American attitude following 
the attack on the Sussex. Throughout all this time 
the President was earnestly striving to maintain peace, 
and at the same time to restrain Germany from acts 
that would make war inevitable. On Germany's part, 
all her replies and proposals, though seemingly friendly 
and diplomatically proper, were but a mockery. She 
was simply biding her time, waiting until events should 
make it desirable to throw off the mask. 

As soon as it became even remotely possible that 
America might be drawn into war there came a de- 
mand that America prepare, voiced by Colonel Roose- 
velt and by thousands of other leading citizens, who 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. I43 

were alarmed at the unprepared condition of the 
country. The war had assumed such tremendous pro- 
portions that anything seemed possible, even the inva- 
sion of America. They saw the smallness of our 
army, only a few thousand men in addition to the re- 
quirements of coast defenses, army posts, the Philip- 
pines and the Mexican border. The periodicals of 
the country were flooded with "histories" of the de- 
scent of a victorious Germany upon a defenseless 
America with accounts of the destruction or ransom 
of New York, Philadelphia, and other cities. A pro- 
German weekly, not to be outdone, published a history 
of the conquest of America by England and Japan. 

The call for preparedness was emphasized by the 
events of 191 6. Mexico had threatened trouble for 
several years. Border raids, the murder of Ameri- 
cans in Mexico, the destruction or looting of property, 
aroused a demand that some action be taken. Early 
in 191 6, the bandit leader, Villa, made a raid in Co- 
lumbus, New Mexico, killing some few citizens and 
soldiers. Although a decision was made almost at 
once to send a United States force to capture Villa, 
it was weeks before a detachment under General Persh- 
ing got under way. The entire National Guard was 
called out for service upon the Mexican border, and 
it was an even longer time before they were mobilized. 
They lacked most of the equipment an army should 
have and the troops were insufficiently trained. 
. As a result of the Mexican campaign a sentiment 
arose in favor of discarding the National Guard as a 
military force, and organizing a larger standing army, 
or at least, a trained reserve army. Secretary of War 
Garrison threw his weight in favor of a new plan of 
defense, and when it failed to win support he resigned 
and was succeeded by Newton D. Baker. But pre- 
paredness was in the air and would not be denied. It is 
true that there was a strong sentiment against any sort 
of preparation for war. Mr. Bryan was the spokesman 



144 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

of the Americans holding this view. His declaration 
that "a million soldiers would spring to arms over 
night in case of need" destroyed much of his reputa- 
tion for sagacity. But although Mr. Roosevelt had 
aroused the people to the needs and perils of the day, 
nothing practical was done during 191 6. The navy 
fared better than the army in that a three-year program 
was adopted that provided for a great increase in war- 
ships. 

The Germans were interested observers of American 
politics, and especially of the Mexican campaign. 
Her agents were told to make even greater efforts to 
stir up Mexico against the United States, and thus en- 
gage all of America's military energy. For Germany's 
submarine decision depended upon the probability of 
America's intervention. And the showing of the 
American army seemed, to Germany, to preclude not 
only the probability but the possibility of any effective 
opposition. It was an accepted axiom that only 
trained troops were of avail on a modern battlefield, 
and except for the small standing army, America had 
no trained troops, and could not possibly raise and 
train an army of sufficient size in time to play a vital 
part in a war with Germany — so her leaders thought. 
And even granted that America could raise an army, 
it could not be transported across the Atlantic. The 
submarines would prevent that. But the Germans, in 
stirring up the Mexican trouble for Uncle Sam, really 
did him a friendly service in calling his attention to 
the condition of his army. They also provided an 
able general with valuable experience in handling 
troops in an actual campaign. 

The political campaign of 19 16 was fought mainly 
on the question of preparedness and of Mr. Wilson's 
foreign policy. The Republicans declared in favor of 
a more aggressive attitude. It is noteworthy that the 
Eastern States, where the people had a personal con- 
tact with some phase of the war, voted for Mr. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 45 

Hughes, while the West and South were almost solid 
for Mr. Wilson — and peace. The interpretation the 
Germans put upon the the result of the election has been 
noted. From this time onward America drifted and 
Germany steered toward war. The submarine cam- 
paign had been definitely decided upon and the date 
set, but it was kept a secret until the last minute. 
Germany's agents took final measures to hamper the 
government in case of war. Not content with financ- 
ing bandits in Mexico, the German foreign minister, 
in a message that was intercepted by the United States 
secret service, instructed the German ambassador to 
Mexico to propose an alliance, in which Mexico should 
receive, as a -reward, such parts of Texas, New 
Mexico, and Arizona as she desired. It was further 
ordered that Mexico should make efforts to persuade 
Japan to join the alliance. America did not know 
whether to be more amazed at the audacity of this 
plan or amused at the ignorance of a German minister. 
Another message intercepted was one from Ambas- 
sador Bernstorff requesting permission to use fifty 
thousand dollars to influence Congress for peace in 
"ways you know of." This was not made public until 
after Herr von Bernstorff's departure. That there 
was a reality in Germany's influence in Mexico and 
elsewhere is shown in a proposal received February 
12, 191 7, from Carranza, in which he proposed, in the 
name of peace, an embargo on the shipment of muni- 
tions to Europe. 

And now, at an hour w T hen the world was desperate 
with war weariness, when nations were cracking under 
the strain, when influential public opinion in America 
pronounced the war a deadlock, and called for peace 
in the name of humanity, Germany shot her submarine 
bolt. Like lightning from a clear sky the war fell 
upon America, when on January 31, 191 7, Bernstorff 
announced that as a "consequence of a 'new situation' 
his government would, on the following day, begin a 



I46 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

policy of unrestricted submarine warfare." In a note 
from his government it was "hoped that the United 
States would view this measure with a sympathetic 
eye." 

America was too stunned for a day to realize all 
that was implied. It repelled with scorn Germany's 
offer to allow, under certain conditions, one American 
ship each week to sail to England. The nation ac- 
cepted the decision of the President to break off re- 
lations with Germany. It heard with gladness the 
ringing declaration of rights in the President's address 
to Congress on February 3d, and it especially noted 
his words "an overt act" and grimly set itself to wait 
for it. 

The "overt act" was not long in coming. On the 
night of February 25th the Cunard liner, Lucania, 
was torpedoed and sunk. The crew and passengers 
were forced to take to open boats in a rough sea 
and bitter weather ; twelve passengers, including two 
American women, died from exposure. The Germans 
had carried out their threat. This was but one of 
several daily sinkings in which lives were sacrificed. 
The American press and people accepted the event as 
a guarantee of war. But it was not practical to de- 
clare war on the instant. The Congress then in ses- 
sion would automatically expire in a week, and it was 
necessary to wait until a new Congress came in. 
However, on the day following the sinking of the 
Lucania; the President asked Congress to empower 
him to arm ships for defense against submarines. 

Not one of the transatlantic liners sailing under the 
American flag had left port since the beginning of un- 
restricted sinkings. Ships that were ready to sail 
were held; ships a day or two out were called back. 
But this was playing Germany's game. It was un- 
thinkable that the American flag should be driven from 
the seas. The act to arm merchant ships took its 
course through Congress, but when it came before the 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. I47 

Senate for discussion its passage was prevented by a 
group of "willful senators" who took advantage' of 
the Senate rules of unlimited debate to use the last re- 
maining hours of the session in speeches against the 
measure. Seventy-five senators signed a statement 
to the fact that they would have voted for it if they 
had been permitted to do so. 

But the ships were armed nevertheless. Advantage 
was taken of an old law permitting ships to defend 
themselves against pirates ; and early in March the 
steamship St. Louis sailed from New York with naval 
gun crews, the first American liner to sail. However, 
the first American ship to reach Europe after Feb- 
ruary ist, was the Rochester, which was on the seas 
at the time. 

More American lives were lost. American ships 
were sunk without warning. But the loss of Ameri- 
can lives on the Litcania was accepted as final proof of 
Germany's intention. President Wilson decided upon 
war. Immediately after his second inauguration he 
issued a call for Congress to meet in special session on 
April 1 6th. The date was later changed to April 2d. 
When the day came he appeared before a joint session 
of Congress and delivered a historic address, reciting 
the indignities and crimes of the German government, 
and denouncing the aims of German autocracy. He 
called for a declaration that a state of war already 
existed by reason of acts committed against the United 
States. The measure was put through in four days : 
the Senate having adopted rules that prevented La 
Follette, Stone, or any other senator willfully inclined, 
from obstructing it. Six senators and about seventy- 
five representatives voted against war; but on April 
6th the House finally passed the measure and it im- 
mediately received the signature of the President. The 
United States was at war, America, who had in- 
vented the submarine, was at war with an enemy who 
had made the greatest development of the underwater 



I48 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

craft; America, who had invented the machine gun, 
was going to war with the greatest exponent of the 
weapon ; America was beginning a conflict in which 
air craft was a vital necessity, but America, the in- 
ventor of the aeroplane, had hardly a war machine 
of the air in commission. 

The United States pledged its full strength to the 
cause of democracy. It pledged its military and naval 
forces to the utter defeat of the enemy. With one 
accord the people of the East, the West, the North, 
the South felt the significance of America's entry into 
the war, and with tremendous enthusiasm they set 
themselves at the service of the nation. The German- 
American cities of St. Louis and Cincinnati were not 
less loyal or spontaneous than the more purely Ameri- 
can cities of Kansas City and Denver; San Francisco 
was not less eager for success than New York. Bos- 
ton, the cradle of the Republic, was not more patriotic 
than the young cities of Omaha and Los Angeles. 
The fatuous hopes of German agents were not real- 
ized; there was no uprising; neither German-Ameri- 
cans nor pacifists attempted to obstruct the govern- 
ment. All Americans at once^took it for granted that 
every legitimate resource would be used to win vic- 
tory; the savings of the nation, the capital if required, 
the labor or lives of citizens, all were willingly offered 
to the country. There was a glad thrill of joy in the 
knowledge that at last America was going to the res- 
cue of France, of Belgium, and Serbia; a thrill of 
satisfaction that she was going to face the foe by the 
side of Britain. There was the deep joy of liberating 
strife, when Americans would gladly lay down their 
lives for the welfare of the world. 

It would be a war to the finish ; there was no ques- 
tion about it. Americans felt that they were con- 
fronted by a power that meant to rule by force. The 
exposure of plots in Mexico, as well as in the United 
States, made it clear that the Kaiser intended to force 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 149 

his will upon America as soon as he should be tri- 
umphant; and so the country accepted the challenge; 
resolved that even though France should fall and 
England be pushed back, America would go on until 
victory was attained. The Kaiser did not believe 
America would or could fight. Germany had mis- 
calculated again. Contrary to her expectations our 
government had declared war and our people had re- 
solved to fight. 

The moral influence of America's declaration of war 
was tremendous. It brought new hope to the war- 
weary Allies. London and all England welcomed us 
with an enthusiasm such as the staid British seldom 
exhibited. The American flag floated over the houses 
of Parliament for the first time. Former Premier 
Asquith declared America's declaration to be ''the 
most disinterested act in history." France welcomed 
American aid with all the enthusiasm of her impulsive 
nature. France and America had always been close 
in spirit, but never so close as now. America talked 
of repaying the debt she owed to Lafayette. It was 
a critical time for France. All the military strength 
of Germany had been exerted, and her secret agents 
within French borders were even then at the culmina- 
tion of their supreme effort toward one end — to drive 
France to seek a separate peace. The propaganda of 
whisperings, of discouragement, of suggestions of re- 
lease from the burdens of war had sensibly affected 
the people. But the entry of America into the conflict, 
and the promised coming of her millions to the battle 
line, gave new hope to France, and she threw off her 
doubts and once more set herself to wait. She had 
waited for England, and England had come; but it 
seemed that America, too, would be needed to insure 
victory, and so France continued to wait. 

The other Allies also rejoiced. Belgium welcomed 
a savior, Serbia a friend ; and to Germany the enmity 
of America was not without its moral effect. She 



V 



150 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

could ascribe to Britain the motives of commercial 
greed ; to France the motive of revenge ; to Russia the 
motive of conquest. But she could not thus interpret 
America's enmity, nor ignore her declaration of the 
common rights of mankind and her condemnation of 
German autocracy. The Germans could for a time 
hearken to their leaders, who told them that America 
had been led by English and French diplomacy, that 
she could not possibly exert any military strength, that 
the submarines would take care of American soldiers 
if they attempted to cross the Atlantic. But such self 
blinding could not endure. In time, the moral effect 
of America's hostility penetrated the minds of the Ger- 
man people. 

The coming of America was indeed timely. Russia 
was practically out of the war, and but for America 
the moral and physical effect of the united strength 
of Germany hurled against the western Allies might 
well have been irresistible. 



CHAPTER XVIL 

V AST PRE P A R A TIONS, 

America could not step immediately into the battle 
line, as, at a few days' notice, France, Russia, and 
Germany had done; her entry would necessarily re- 
quire a period of preparation before an army of ade- 
quate numbers could be ready. We were too far from 
Europe to put an army into action without a tremen- 
dous amount of work in the making of bases, the 
transporting of supplies, et cetera, even had an army 
been trained and ready, and the supplies gathered 
together. 

But the Entente did not expect immediate military 
aid from America. In this respect we were more for- 
tunate than Britain, who had been forced to send her 
splendidly trained army to its death in the battles of 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. I5I 

Mons, the Marne, the Aisne, and Ypres. As a result, 
the new British army had few veterans. It was pos- 
sible for America to build her larger force upon the 
superstructure of the trained standing army, thus con- 
serving all its experience. What the Allies desired 
for the moment, and what we were willing to give, was 
food, munitions, financial aid, and ships. And of the 
I four, it was ships that spelled hope for the Allies ; the 
submarine had dragged America into war, it was 
fitting that her chief effort should be to thwart the 
submarine. 

In 19 1 7 ships were the Allies' great need. Any- 
thing that would float and carry a cargo was desper- 
ately needed. America anxiously scanned the weekly 
reports of submarine depredations, and so terrible 
were the bulletins that it did not seem possible to make 
up the deficit. If the German boast of bringing Eng- 
land to her knees in three months were fulfilled, then 
America's task would be tenfold greater, for she 
would be left to fight alone. There was need for 
ships by the thousands, need for tonnage by the mil- 
lions, to replace the millions lost. The existing ship- 
yards could not build a tenth as many as were needed. 

America set to work with a mighty will to supply 
the ships. There was first a mobilization of resources. 
All vessels of twenty-five hundred tons or more dead 
weight were requisitioned. There were four hundred 
and sixty-eight such vessels, and by the end of the 
summer all that were available for transatlantic 
service were taken over. In addition, all ships being 
built on private contract, or for neutral nations, were 
commandeered and their completion hastened. Ar- 
rangements were sought whereby a number of neutral 
vessels might be acquired. 

The greatest contribution was made by Germany 
herself. Ninety German ships, with a total tonnage 
of more than six-hundred thousand, were held in 
American harbors. Included among these ships was 



152 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

the largest vessel ever built, the Vaterland, of fifty 
thousand tons gross. New Yorkers had grown ac- 
customed to seeing its huge bulk, moored at a Jersey 
City wharf for nearly three years. These vessels were 
seized immediately upon the breaking off of relations, 
but not before the engines of most of the ships had 
been badly damaged by their German crews. How- 
ever, repairs were made in remarkably short time, and 
before many months, German submarine commanders 
were under the sad necessity of trying to sink the ships 
that had been the pride of Germany. Fourteen Aus- 
trian ships were seized also. 

But all these were emergency measures. Even 
though they balanced the destruction during the two 
or three worst months, there was far more required 
to defeat the submarine. The whole seaboard concen- 
trated on ships. The government shipping board was 
given the task of supplying the ships, and was author- 
ized to spend the enormous sum of one billion eight- 
hundred million dollars. The actual construction of 
new ships was put into the hands of a specially created 
board, the Emergency Ship Corporation, which acted 
for the government. In a short time, contracts were 
let for seventy-seven steel vessels and three hundred 
and forty-eight wooden ships, and other contracts 
were let as rapidly as possible. It. is a remarkable 
instance of American faith and energy that contracts 
were allotted to men who had no place to build a ship ; 
the very lumber for these vessels was still in the form 
of giant trees in the forests of Oregon and Washing- 
ton. But these men constructed shipyards and then 
built the ships. Residents of the Atlantic, Pacific, and 
Gulf coasts saw shipyards spring up where a ship had 
never been built. The Great Lakes also became a 
shipbuilding region. The shores of Chesapeake Bay 
and of Puget Sound resounded with the hammers of 
carpenters, and later with the rapid fire tattoo of 
riveters. Even the rivers, the Delaware, the Columbia, 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 53 

and others received many a newly launched ship upon 
their waters. All existing yards were enlarged and 
the work progressed with increasing speed. 

The early policy of the Fleet Corporation was to 
build hundreds of wooden ships. But a question 
arose as to their utility, and some of the first wooden 
ships proved to be unseaworthy. After a bitter dis- 
pute and the resignations of Goethals and Denman, 
it was decided to build steel ships as far as possible. 
A new kind of ship, the hull of which was of concrete, 
was built at San Francisco and proved a success. An- 
other class was the fabricated ships. These were 
vessels of standardized parts; the parts were made 
wherever possible and assembled at a shipyard. 

The first steel vessel contracted for by the Board 
was launched late in November, 19 17, and the first 
wooden ship a few days later. The requisitioned 
ships finished during 191 7 added a million and a 
quarter tons to the fleet. The "submarines sank about 
eight times as much tonnage during the same period. 

Food was even more vital than ships. It was to 
carry food and other necessities that the ships were 
being built. As an ally, the United States could be 
expected to supply more food than as a neutral; and 
Europe was badly in need of all the food America 
could spare. Britain still had enough, by virtue of 
her own merchant marine; but France and Italy 
suffered. They had not enough ships of their own to 
import all that was needed. Belgium was still almost 
wholly dependent upon outside aid, and the neutral 
nations were feeling the pinch of hunger. All Europe 
was on rations. Wheat flour was mixed with other 
kinds to the highest point of dilution ; sugar was scarce 
and almost unknown to poorer tables ; meat was almost 
as scarce and costly, and even the wealthy observed 
meatless days. Importation of luxuries was stopped 
to save cargo space for necessities. 

At the beginning of the war, it was fully expected 



154 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

that Germany would be forced to surrender for lack 
of food. The time was variously set at from one to 
two years. But by the most complete food control, and 
by scientific dieting, and with some fats and other 
foods from America by way of Holland and Den- 
mark in the early period of the war, Germany con- 
tinued to feed herself. Every inch of land was made 
to produce; the million Russian prisoners were forced 
to cultivate crops. In 191 6 some wheat was obtained 
from Roumania. But want and starvation were ever 
threatening, and the time was to come when German 
fortitude broke. 

Austria-Hungary was always worse off than Ger- 
many. With her polyglot population it was not pos- 
sible to perfect either food production or food control. 
There was actual hunger in Austria, increasingly so 
as the war continued. 

The entry of America into the war at the beginning 
of spring made it possible to increase the crops of the 
important foodstuffs, with the exception of the one 
of highest value, wheat, and some few others. All 
America, even to the remotest farms of the Iowa corn 
belt and the Idaho and Colorado potato regions, under- 
stood the important part food would play. And all 
of America's farmers began their spring work with a 
new motive; they were going to raise food to beat 
Germany. There was greatly increased acreage of 
corn, potatoes, and other crops. The dwellers in towns 
and cities planned to help in the great cause by raising 
their own vegetables in their back yards or in vacant 
lots. Many a family under the pressure of war 
necessity learned the luxury of really fresh vegetables. 

As a result of the food agitation, the United States, 
in 191 7, had the most valuable food crop in the history 
of the world. The estimated value was more than 
five billion dollars. More than three billion bushels 
of corn were harvested, more than five hundred mil- 
lion bushels of potatoes. The wheat crop was less 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 55 

than normal; but America was answering the call of 
hungry Europe. 

Nearly as important as food production was food 
control. Only by proper distribution could Okla- 
homa's plentiful supplies be made to reach the hungry 
of France. Among the President's first recommenda- 
tions to Congress was one concerning food regulation. 
He asked for the power to appoint a food administra- 
tor, including authority to take all necessary measures. 
It was announced that this administrator would be 
Herbert C. Hoover, who had directed the Belgian 
food relief. Opposition developed in Congress, headed 
by a Missouri senator, Reed, and it seemed for a time 
that the country would be forced to accept a food com- 
mission instead of an executive. But the President's 
wishes prevailed, though it was not until August that 
the food control act was finally passed. 

There was no further delay in effecting the needed 
measures. Mr. Hoover was a man of wide vision 
and experience, and he was successful in his mission 
from the first. His task was to handle the available 
food in such a way that as much as possible could be 
sent to Europe. Under the authority delegated by 
Congress, he took entire control of wheat and other 
grains, of meat, sugar, and some other foods, of which 
he limited the quantities to be sold here. Out of our 
bounty Europe must be fed. The American people 
gladly accepted limitation of some foods; one of the 
greatest displays of international unselfishness. There 
were millions of homes numbered in the legion pledged 
to save food. Even the school children saw visions 
of Belgian children saved by their self-denial. Wheat- 
less days and meatless meals played a mighty part in 
the sustained morale of Italy, France, and Britain. 

A third way in which the United States could im-« 
mediately help the Allies was in fighting supplies. 
The Entente had bought a billion dollars worth of 
guns and shells alone from neutral America. But it 



I56 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

was plain that America at war could produce greater 
quantities of everything used in war. Production 
could be speeded, with neutrality barriers removed, 
and this America undertook to do. 

A very important item of battlefield needs was 
gasoline. German agents did their best to shut off the 
Mexican supply of petroleum ; if successful, they would 
have seriously crippled aviation, transportation, et cet- 
era. The United States was one of the chief sources 
of petroleum products. The exports of gasoline alone 
in 191 7 and 19 18 were close to half a billion gallons, 
and the export of all oils — fuel, lubricating, et cetera 
— was in excess of two and a half billion gallons, with 
a value of three hundred million dollars. Another 
means of locomotion was horses and mules; four 
hundred thousand of them were exported in the fiscal 
year ending June 30, 191 7. The value of all exports 
to the principal Allies for the year ending June 30, 
19 1 8, was close to four billion dollars. 

Our own military needs, and they were vast, had to 
be filled, but it was important that the Allies continue 
to receive the supplies for which they had contracted. 
Our munitions must come very largely from new 
sources. Military and industrial experts set to work 
to estimate our needs in rifles, bullets, cannon, shells, 
uniforms, shoes, medical supplies, horses, mules, tanks, 
gasoline, motor trucks, aeroplanes, railroad equipment, 
barracks, barbed wire, and food. A great part of 
industrial America went to work on government con- 
tracts. Mill owners who had refused to make explo- 
sives while the country was neutral, began at once to 
fit their machinery for war work. A huge plant was 
constructed on the far Southwest coast of America 
to extract potash from kelp growing in the Pacific 
Ocean; an army detachment penetrated the forests of 
the Northwest to select timber for aeroplanes. Ex- 
perts searched the country for needs of one kind and 
another. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 57 

A War Industries Board took charge of production 
of all supplies, determined prices, priority of shipment, 
distribution of raw material, assumed authority in 
matters of labor supply and wages : giving another in- 
stance of American genius for organization. 

It was for financial aid also that the Entente looked 
to America. Every one of the nations, both friend 
and foe, had drawn heavily upon their resources, had 
taxed their peoples to the utmost. They were mort- 
gaging their future to an extent that threatened dis- 
aster. It was a -grim saying that the side with the 
last hundred million dollars would win the war. 

The coming of America, with her great wealth and 
boundless resources, into the arena with the impover- 
ished combatants, was one of the turning points of the 
war. Under modern conditions, our resources avail- 
able for war were valued by the tens of -billions. 
Germany affected to disregard our financial help, say- 
ing that it had been exerted against her from the first 
and that she would win in spite of it. 

Among the first acts of Congress were financial 
measures toward the conduct of the war. One of 
these was authorization to lend great sums to the 
Entente. These were largely in the form of credit 
for supplies purchased here. By the end of the war, 
the loans had reached a total of more than eight 
billion dollars. There was a popular proposal to give 
one billion dollars to France, in recognition of her 
many services to the United States. 

Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo was soon calmly 
writing warrants for sums of hundreds of millions. 
Our own financial needs were at first uncertain, but 
would plainly require an increase of income from the 
normal sum of one billion to at least ten billion dollars. 
In advance of an estimated budget, Congress author- 
ized emergency expenditures of more than three bil- 
lions for war needs. Provision was made for a huge 
bond issue of seven billion dollars. 



158 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

Only two billions were asked in the first loan, called 
the First Liberty Loan. A second was for a far 
larger sum; altogether, about seven and a half billions 
were subscribed during 19 17. Another form of bor- 
rowing was in the sale of thrift stamps and war saving 
stamps, which was an innovation borrowed from Great 
Britain. These were not put on sale until 19 18. 

As a matter of economics, it was planned to defray 
a third of the cost of war by direct taxation. This 
necessitated a tremendous amount of work to frame 
a bill that would raise four billions or more. The 
chairman of the Ways and Means Committee failed to 
produce a tax bill adequate to the needs of the country. 

While legislators and executives were busied with 
finance and organization, the thoughts of the people 
were ever upon the actual fighting and the fighters. 
It was a matter of pride that American armies had 
always been recruited largely from volunteers. Only 
in the Civil War had it been necessary to resort to con- 
scription. Public sentiment was in favor of the volun- 
teer system. Speaker Champ Clark could see little dif- 
ference between conscripts and convicts. But reason, 
wisdom, and military history called for conscription. 
Under the volunteer system it was always the bravest 
and most patriotic that came forward — and died. 
Many a brave young Englishman, who should have 
been trained for an officership, died a private in the 
bloody battles of Flanders. Many a skilled mechanic 
served as an infantryman. 

With the terrible lessons of the European War so 
clearly revealed, it was folly to cling to the volunteer 
system under conditions that necessitated an army of 
millions. The President and other authorities favored 
a draft basis for the army, and they carried the day 
against considerable opposition in Congress. The law 
makers began on April 23d to consider a draft law ; 
on May 16th it passed finally, and on May 18th re- 
ceived the signature of the President. The new law, 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 59 

under the title "Selective Service," called for the regis- 
tration of every man between the ages of twenty-one 
to thirty inclusive. In his proclamation the Presi- 
dent declared that the whole nation had volunteered, 
and that the task was to choose the men who should 
fight their country's battles. 

The country accepted the decision of its leaders, 
and on June 5th the young men of the nation regis- 
tered. They were 9,659,382 strong, the first great 
word of America's answer to the Kaiser. Million- 
aire's son and laborer marched together, equal before 
the law, and together they pronounced upon the enemy 
the fiery sentence of America. 

The United States was fortunate in possessing an 
officer who had made a lifelong study of the problem 
of conscription. General Crowder was the right 
man in the right place. It was he that outlined the 
draft law, and it was he that directed its operation 
throughout the war. 

Before the date set for the draft registration, the 
army and navy were largely increased by voluntary 
enlistments. More than two hundred thousand enlist- 
ments in the army were secured in a very short time, 
the new men being placed in established regiments 
with the regular forces. The National Guard also 
was recruited to four hundred and fifty thousand, 
three times its former strength. This gave a total 
of nearly eight hundred thousand men in the regular 
army and the guard, combined. 

The navy personnel in 1917 numbered less than 
seventy thousand men. An increase to one hundred 
thousand, ordered as an emergency measure, was 
almost instantly supplied, so rapidly did volunteers 
offer themselves. The limit was raised again and 
again; one hundred thousand additional men were in 
the navy by September. They were sent to sea as 
fast as they could be trained, or as rapidly as ships 
could be provided. 



l60 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

At the time of our entry into the war, there did not 
appear to be an immediate need for American soldiers 
in Europe. As the Russian tangle grew worse, it 
seemed likely that the war would continue into 19 19, 
so strongly did Germany's defensive power impress 
the world. It was accepted that an American army 
would be needed to deliver the decisive blow, but as 
it was hardly possible for an army of size to be trained 
before the autumn of 19 18, the authorities made their 
plans accordingly. There was no intention at first on 
the part of the War Department to send troops to 
France during the first year. There was no equipment 
for an army, even had it been otherwise ready. It 
was decided to train the troops in the United States, 
while their equipment was being produced. 

What determined the policy of the War Depart- 
ment was the advice given by Marshal Jofrre. Im- 
mediately following the declaration of war, delega- 
tions of officials from each of the Entente Allies visited 
the United States to arrange for codperation in mili- 
tary and financial matters. The English delegation, 
headed by Mr. Balfour, the foreign minister, crossed 
the Atlantic in less time than was ever before accom- 
plished. Britain had built some very speedy ships 
to cope with a possible outbreak of commerce raiding 
by German cruisers. One of these vessels carried the 
embassy across the ocean in three days. 

The French party was headed by a former premier, 
Viviani, and by Marshall Jofrre. The great French 
general, who had recently laid down the heavy 
burden of leadership, received a warmer welcome than 
any foreigner who ever visited America. He visited 
all the larger cities of the East and Middle West, 
arousing tremendous enthusiasm for the Allied cause. 
But it was for more than public meetings that the 
visitors came. Serious consultations took place be- 
tween the expert war makers and the various depart- 
ments of government. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. l6l 

JofTre very earnestly declared that an American 
army in France would have a wonderful effect upon 
his people, that it would be to them a visible sign of 
the day of complete victory. Later events proved the 
wisdom of this advice. French morale was sensibly 
weakened by the work of Bolo Pasha and other Ger- 
man agents, and had it not been for the new hope of 
aid from America, the advance guard of which they 
saw with their own eyes, it is doubtful how much 
longer they could have withstood the dreadful pres- 
sure. 

From a strictly military standpoint, it was better 
to build the army organization in France, where the 
righting would be, than to construct it in America. 
All the hundreds of staff officers would necessarily 
have an immense amount of work to do in advance of 
actual fighting, and much of this work could be done 
more effectively in France. Troops could receive their 
final training under battle conditions close to the front 
lines; more effectively than in peaceful America. As 
a result of Joffre's request, it was decided to send a 
force across the Atlantic at an early date. 

There was one branch of fighting that more than 
any other caught the imagination of Americans. It 
seemed natural, inevitable, that America, having in- 
vented the aeroplane, should rise to supremacy in the 
air. It was assumed' that in the course of a few 
months we could produce aeroplanes by hundreds and 
thousands. A great wave of enthusiasm swept over 
the country. There was even talk of centering all 
our energies upon the air service, on the theory that 
a man in the air was worth a hundred on the ground. 
People saw visions of one hundred thousand planes 
darkening the sky above the German lines. Govern- 
ment officials dreamed of ten or twenty thousand 
machines in service. American eagles were to swarm 
over Germany, downing enemy planes, blowing up 
munition works, wrecking railways, until the German 



1 62 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

army should be driven to the very caves and dugouts 
for safety. The enthusiasm took hold of Congress 
and culminated in an appropriation, on July 14th, of 
six hundred and forty million dollars for aeroplanes. 
The War Department was given a free hand. 

Very naturally, disappointment and criticism fol- 
lowed the failure of the American aeroplane program. 
But the administration could not justly be charged 
with more than a small part of the blame. The hopes 
and aims were extravagant. There was not even a 
motor adopted until late in the year, when the Liberty 
Motor was evolved. America had undertaken the 
impossible in her scheme to attain air supremacy. 

But America would have accomplished the impos- 
sible, would have had more than ten thousand planes 
at the front by 19 19 if the war had continued. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

AMERICA IN FRANCE AND ON THE SEA. 

On May 26, 191 7, General Pershing was appointed 
commander-in-chief of the American Expeditionary 
Forces. The supreme command was bestowed upon 
an officer almost unknown, outside of the army, until 
the expedition in 19 16 to capture Villa. But General 
Pershing was a man of wide experience, who had cam- 
paigned during the final wars with hostile Indians, had 
seen much service in the Philippines, and had wit- 
nessed several battles in the Russo-Japanese war of 
I904-5- 

General Pershing was instructed to proceed to 
Europe and arrange for American participation in 
military operations. To him was given large discre- 
tionary power; he was to select, after consultation, 
the ports of debarkation, the training areas, the battle 
lines; he was to determine the composition and num- 
bers of the expeditionary army. In recognition of 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 163 

the fact that he would shortly command the greatest 
army America had ever created, he was advanced to 
the rank of full general, hitherto held only by Wash- 
ington, Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan. 

After a secret departure and a safe journey through 
submarine-infested water, General Pershing landed in 
England on June 6th, and after some few days of 
consultations, he proceeded to France. On June 13th, 
Paris welcomed him with great enthusiasm. The 
people hailed him with joy, the generals and statesmen 
with relief. 

For the time being, General Pershing established 
his headquarters in Paris, and the officers of his staff 
began the great volume of work that was theirs to do. 
They investigated base possibilities, visited the various 
battle areas, made requisitions for supplies by train and 
shiploads, made blue prints of camps, hospitals and 
warehouses that were to spring up later, made recom- 
mendations concerning the branches of service the 
army most needed. 

Both the French and British were eager to receive 
the American army on their own soil to give help in 
training, to share battle honors when the time should 
come. But General Pershing looked ahead to the days 
when he would command troops by the hundreds of 
thousands ; and he was determined to prepare for that 
time, to build the army on a basis broad enough for 
any expansion to millions. To do this, it would be 
necessary to develop his army as a distinct force, with 
its own battle front and bases. The British area was 
not adaptable for an American army because the Brit- 
ish made use of all the ports on the northwestern 
coast of France, and occupied all the cities as army 
bases; more important still, they needed all the rail- 
roads for their own use. The same was true of the 
front extending from the Somme to beyond Rheims. 
Here the battle front was nearest Paris; here the 



164 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

French had their chief bases and their largest armies; 
here they had fought their greatest battles. 

There remained for the American army as a future 
base of operations the region centering in Verdun. 
It was most convenient also in relation to the ports 
that were available. Since Britain occupied the 
northern ports, America must use the southern ones, 
or those from Brest southward. Four ports, Brest, 
St. Nazaire (Nantes), La Pallice, and Bordeaux, were 
used by the American army as places of debarkation. 
Barracks were erected for the temporary housing of 
the troops until they were dispatched inland. 

From these ports ran railroads that were not used 
by either the French or the British to any great extent; 
railroads that ran far to the rear of Paris and the 
battle area direct to the chosen base of the American 
army in Lorraine. At these ports gathered little 
groups of officers, seeking sites for wharves for the 
ships, and barracks for the soldiers that were to come. 

Besides General Pershing and his staff, some other 
American officers and men had gone to France, among 
them an engineer unit and a number of aviators. But 
the first American righting men to cross the Atlantic 
in large numbers was half of the first division of the 
regular army. They landed in France on June 26th; 
the other half of the division crossed in July. The 
French had welcomed Pershing, but they went wild 
with joy at the sight of the battle troops. It was a 
great day for France and America when those first 
ships steamed into the harbor of Brest. The Ameri- 
can people at home rejoiced at the safe passage of 
their soldiers. Submarines were a terrible danger in 
those days, and it seemed a triumph to have carried 
the men across without disaster. 

With the arrival of the first troops the problem of 
General Pershing and his staff was transferred from 
paper to reality. After a parade in Paris, the men 
of the first division were sent to* the new training area 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. I&g 

to begin their long period of getting ready. But it 
was the noncombatants who were busiest in those 
days. The new army must eat, and its food must come 
from America, for France could not feed it; and food 
meant cold storage plants to be constructed. They 
must be clothed, and given shelter, and their uniforms 
must come from home ; the men who built their bar- 
racks must be Americans, for the man power of France 
was engaged to the utmost. All these supplies meant 
a purchasing force in America, transportation by train 
and boat; meant conveyance across France, meant 
warehouses, railroad equipment, machinery; meant 
American trainmen, American stevedores ; thousands 
of men were working to supply the soldier who went 
to France to fight for freedom. 

The preparations of the American Expeditionary 
Force were stupendous in extent and marvelous in 
efficiency. Even the French, accustomed to war, were 
amazed at the magnitude of the American measures. 
Hundreds of buildings were erected at the port towns 
to care for incoming troops; miles of wharves were 
built, the very harbors were deepened; the most 
modern labor-saving machinery was installed. The 
first draft men in France were Southern negroes 
brought over to handle freight at the ports of France. 

The main line railways of France were sufficient 
for the needs of the army, but hundreds of miles of 
branch lines and sidings were constructed at the ports, 
at the various bases and at the great camps. Hun- 
dreds of railroad men were sent from America to 
operate the railways used by our army. Much equip- 
ment was transported also. Supplies came in increasing 
quantities — meats, grain, flour, beans, dried fruit and 
other foods ; medical supplies, fodder for the thousands 
of animals; supplies for the Red Cross, the Y. M. 
C. A. and other organizations. The American sol- 
diers were to be well fed, well clothed and well housed. 

The American army grew. Two months were re- 



1 66 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

quired to transport the first division, but after' that 
they crossed the bridge of boats in increasing numbers. 
Nearly twenty thousand crossed in August, over thirty- 
three thousand in September, forty thousand in Oc- 
tober. In November the number dropped to twenty- 
three thousand, but in December it mounted again, 
when nearly fifty thousand men were carried over. 
Altogether, a little less than two hundred thousand 
troops crossed in 191 7, a larger army than McClellan 
raised in the first year of the Civil War. The unit 
to follow the first division was the Twenty-sixth, a 
National Guard division from New England. The 
descendents of Paul Revere, John Adams, and Israel 
Putman were not to be outdone in zeal. Then came 
the Second division, another regular army unit, and 
following it, the Forty-second, the famous Rainbow 
division, crossed over. The latter was made up of 
troops from twenty-six States. The four infantry 
regiments were from New York, Ohio, Alabama and 
Iowa, the other units from different States, from 
Maryland to Louisiana and California. The Forty- 
first, known as the Sunset division, was also taken to 
France before the end of 191 7. 

About a third of these troops were carried in Eng- 
lish ships leased by the United States government. 
One convoy group was landed at Liverpool, and on 
August 15th, for the first time in history, American 
soldiers marched through London. The calm Eng- 
lishman was moved to cheers to behold the Stars and 
Stripes being carried to the battlefield of Liberty where 
it would wave beside the Union Jack and the tri- 
color of France. 

As rapidly as the soldiers were transported, they 
were sent to the training areas of the American army 
in eastern France. Chaumont, Langres, and other 
towns will have their place in American history hence- 
forth, as connected with the training of our greatest 
army. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 67 

Important changes in the organization of the vari- 
ous units were made in view of the situation. One of 
the great needs of the army was officers. It was met 
in part by increasing the size of the various units : 
company regiment, brigade, division. Instead of the 
traditional infantry regiment of about a thousand men, 
a colonel now commanded about thirty-seven hun- 
dred men. It was made up of various branches, in- 
stead of being only infantry troops. Of the three 
thousand seven hundred and fifty-five men, one hun- 
dred and seventy-eight belonged to a machine-gun 
company, as an integral part of each regiment. A 
brigade numbered nearly eighty-five hundred men, in- 
cluding two infantry regiments, and an additional 
machine-gun battalion. The American division was a 
complete army, larger in number than many a separate 
command in the Civil War had been. It was twice 
the size of the French or German division, numbering 
about twenty-eight thousand men. It was a complete 
fighting force, composed of two brigades of infantry, 
a field artillery brigade, a divisional machine-gun bat- 
talion (in addition to those incorporated in regiments 
and brigades), units of engineers, signal corps, supply 
trains, et cetera. There were not far from twenty- 
five hundred machine gunners alone in a division. 
The artillery personnel was nearly five thousand men. 

The small regular army of the United States was 
well trained, but as a matter of policy it had been un- 
trained, as it were, by the injection of recruits into 
the regiments, until two-thirds of the force were new 
men. The same was true of the National Guard regi- 
ments. It was necessary to begin training from the 
bottom, but the presence of veterans made progress 
much faster. 

Never was an army so thoroughly trained for war. 
The German and the French training, before the war, 
was based on theory, the American on fact. It was 
America's good fortune that the Allies could grant 



l68 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

her the time to train the troops thus. The French 
and British each sent officers and non-commissioned 
officers to assist in the training, and the Americans 
were given instruction by experts in bombing, trench- 
ing, bayonet practice, scouting; were given the benefit 
of all the discoveries in aeroplane work, in artillery 
fire, range finding; the developments in communica- 
tions in actual battle ; all the secrets of the intelligence 
officers were made known. American generals were 
initiated into the battle control of French or British 
commanders during actual battles; second lieutenants 
learned all that their friends of the same rank could 
teach. Schools for officers were opened, where all 
branches of warfare were taught. And the day came 
when the American army was ready for the next step. 

This was actual battle experience in the trenches. 
On the 23d of October American soldiers took over a 
short line of trenches in the Toul sector. America 
was in the battle line, though but a tiny part of it. 
The Germans soon learned of the new enemy and 
determined to discourage him at once. On November 
3d they laid down an intense barrage fire cutting off 
an American trench. A quick charge by a strong 
German force succeeded in inflicting some casualties, 
and in capturing a few prisoners. These latter were 
exhibited as a proof of the invincibility of German 
soldiers. On November 4th the first American dead 
on the field of battle were buried on French soil. 
At the simple ceremonies of burial a French officer 
expressed a wish that those three soldiers be left in 
France that France might care for their graves 
through the years. 

Each unit of the American force had its turn in the 
trenches. Following the custom of the Allies they 
served successively in front-line trenches and in re- 
serve. This continued throughout the winter; occa- 
sionally a skirmish took place. But the American 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 169 

sector was a quiet one that had seen no major opera- 
tions since 1914. 

The next step in the training, following the trenches, 
was the drill in evolution of divisions, looking forward 
to the days when corps and armies should be formed. 

The navy was the only fighting force ready for im- 
mediate war, and less than a month after the declara- 
tion of hostilities, a naval force was in English waters. 
Vice Admiral William S. Sims, commander of the 
American fleet, and one of the most brilliant officers 
of his generation, is worthy to be mentioned with 
Jones, Hull, Perry, Farragut, and Dewey. On the 
fourth day of May he arrived at Queenstown, Ire- 
land, with the full strength in destroyers of the United 
States navy. His vessels were ready for instant serv- 
ice, to the delight of British officers. With Queens- 
town as their bases, the American warships proceeded 
to write a new chapter in the annals of the navy. It 
was not a chapter of shot and shell, of battles royal 
or dashing feats. It was a strangely new phase of 
naval work, requiring incessant vigilance against an 
unseen foe. The destroyers themselves were seldom 
in danger from submarines; they were so swift and 
their draft so slight that torpedoes rarely struck them. 
But it was a duty full of hardships spent on the stormy 
Atlantic. There were no fights between battleships 
for the Americans ; no sailing into an enemy port, as 
Dewey did. The American battleships waited for the 
enemy to come out as they waited at Santiago Bay; 
but, unlike the Spanish, the Germans never came out 
to fight. Their mission was to seek out the U-boats 
and destroy them, a work that required constant duty 
on the high seas. Submarines always avoided a de- 
stroyer, being helpless against its greater strength and 
armament. The destroyers were augmented by other 
craft, among them a hundred wooden submarine 
chasers of a length of one hundred and ten feet. 
These had great speed. Ultimately three hundred and 



170 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

fifty of these wooden chasers were built and put into 
service, but for various reasons were not as successful 
as was anticipated. Additional ships put into com- 
mission were private yachts, gunboats, and other small 
steamers. Admiral Sims was able to announce before 
the end of the year that he commanded a total of two 
hundred and fifty vessels in the war zone, with crews 
numbering forty thousand men. 

The American people, filled with dread of sub- 
marine success, felt immense relief when they knew 
our navy w r as at work against the sea assassins. But 
there was a general feeling that some new power was 
needed to deal with U-boats, and American inventive 
genius was called upon to bring forth the agency that 
should defeat the submarines. Secretary Daniels of 
the Navy Department formed a navy consulting board 
composed of prominent inventors and industrial 
leaders; Thomas A. Edison being the best known 
member of the board. This created boundless en- 
thusiasm and confidence. Thousands of suggestions 
as to methods of destroying U-boats poured in upon 
the board. Every third man in the country, almost, 
had a scheme to present, varying from electric devices 
to blow up the boats from a distance, to a variety of 
ways to trap the enemy. During the year, the papers 
announced that a panacea for submarines had been 
discovered. But it proved to be a premature hope. 

A combination of destroyer and depth bomb was 
the most effective weapon against the U-boats. The 
destroyers with their speed of thirty to thirty-five 
knots could traverse a great many miles during the 
course of a day, could quickly respond to a wireless 
call. The depth bomb was a Swedish invention. It 
was regulated so that the pressure of the water ex- 
ploded it at the desired depth. Once a submarine was 
sighted a destroyer dropped these bombs in the vicinity, 
and lucky was the enemy that escaped. The most 
efficient work of destroyer and other warships was in 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 171 

convoying transports and merchant ships. This means ' 
of safeguarding shipping was greatly aided by the 
United States navy, and its value was shown immedi- 
ately in decreased sinkings. The almost absolute 
security to ships thus guarded is shown by the fact 
that not a single east-bound American transport, of 
all the hundreds that crossed the Atlantic, was tor- 
pedoed. The two million American soldiers were the 
legitimate prey of German submarines, and a prize that 
might well invite the utmost daring of German sailors. 
But the American soldiers were almost as safe as if 
there had been no torpedoes to fear. Never were the 
Germans able to place a torpedo against the hull of a 
transport full of soldiers; never were they able to 
penetrate the vigilant guard of destroyers. A very- 
few transports were torpedoed on the return journey 
when they were not so closely guarded. 

The preeminent value of destroyers was so evident 
that the Navy Department concentrated on the build- 
ing of these vessels, leaving battleships and other con- 
struction for later times. The navy had about sixty 
destroyers in action early in 191 7. In August Mr. 
Daniels asked for three hundred and fifty million 
dollars to build destroyers, and in the following year 
nearly a hundred of them were built. 

The navy fought in the Mediterranean as well as in 
the Atlantitc, carried troops to arctic Russia, and 
watched the American coast for a possible raid upon 
our harbors. The transports were largely operated by 
the Navy Department; ultimately forty thousand en- 
listed men were used in transport duty. By the end of 
the war, hundreds of vessels, warships and transports, 
were in the service. 

There was, in the American navy, a well-defined 
policy of aggression against submarines, but in actual 
practice it was difficult to improve upon the methods 
of the British, with their air and naval raids upon the 
U-boat bases, their nets, trawlers, and "hush" ships* 



1^2 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

The most striking achievement of the American navy- 
was the construction of a barrage of mines, late in 
19 1 8, stretching from Norway to Scotland. More 
than two hundred miles long, containing eighty thou- 
sand mines, it was designed to keep the submarines 
from reaching the Atlantic. 

Our naval losses were very small; only three or 
four destroyers and patrol boats, and one' cruiser, the 
San Diego, with the resulting death of several hundred 
American sailors. 

Meanwhile there was activity at home in support 
of the soldiers and sailors abroad, activity extending 
to every town and city in the country. 

In the summer of 191 7 carpentry was popular in 
two score localities throughout the United States. 
America was building camps wherein to train her 
young men. Sixteen large camps were built to ac- 
commodate the thousands of selective service men, and 
the same number were built for the National Guard, 
while smaller camps were established for aviation, 
hospital units, officers' schools, naval training stations. 
The larger camps were planned to accommodate forty 
thousand soldiers. The majority of them were 
located in the Southern States to permit open air train- 
ing during the winter; but a few were in the North 
and West, in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and Washington. 
All but five of the draft camps were east of the Mis- 
sissippi River. 

On August 5th the National Guard was called into 
Federal service and the men departed to Long Island, 
to South Carolina, to New Mexico, and elsewhere, to 
begin their training. On September 4th the first of 
the draft men went to camp. Others followed by 
thousands until more than a half million were in camp. 
The transportation of these men to the camps, and 
their subsequent transportation to the seaboard, was 
done so quietly and well that not even the traveling 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. I73 

public were aware of the number of special trains in 
operation. 

It was a new life to the youth of America; the 
coming of a great experience, a new outlook on the 
world and upon their relation to it. To many it was 
a new physical experience, and required a period of 
hardening to outdoor life. Then came the rudiments 
of drill, the long marches through the dust or mud, 
the learning of discipline and military etiquette, the 
gradual transformation from a crowd to an army. 

But before these men could be trained, it had been 
imperative first to teach other men to train them. 
One of the most necessary parts of any army is its 
officers. A new army is more dependent upon officers 
than a trained force. It was very largely our lack 
of trained officers that made the Germans so certain 
that we could not fight in Europe. But America set 
to work to provide these for her army. On May 15th, 
seven weeks after we had entered war, sixteen officers' 
training camps in various parts of the country were 
opened, with an enrollment of forty thousand. Only 
men likely to qualify were accepted; a college educa- 
tion or its equivalent was essential. Every officer 
not slated for European duty was detailed to instruct 
the new men. A three months' course of rigorous 
training and instruction transformed civilians into 
officers able to drill the selective service army. A 1 
second class of candidates for officerships was called 
in August. 

An important phase of the training was the instruc- 
tion given by the French and British officers, of whom 
ten or more were borrowed for each of the larger 
camps. Usually there was at every camp an expert 
in each of the branches of warfare. The British gave 
instruction in machine guns, trench mortars, bayonet 
exercise, liquid fire, gas, and sniping. The French 
taught artillery work, bombing, sapping, communica- 
tion in battle, et cetera. 



174 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

Thereafter, it was a common sight to see the French 
officers in all parts of the country, their blue uniforms 
being more noticeable than those of the British. 

Aviation schools were opened early, although the 
first instruction was in ground work. It was not until 
late in the autumn that air practice could be begun. 
With so few planes and trained officers to begin with, 
progress was apparently slow and it was not until 1918 
that the schools began to turn out graduates. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE WEST FRONT IN I917. 

The long battle of 191 7 began in February, when 
the British resumed their attacks on the northern 
section of the Somme front. This phase was known 
as the Ancre battles. In a sense the British had never 
ended the Battle of the Somme; had only paused until 
the bad weather was over. All through the winter 
months the big guns pounded the German lines, aero- 
planes scouted for information and generals revised 
plans for the resumption of fighting. 

The year 1916 had left the Germans in possession 
of Bapaume, toward which the British fought during 
four months. The new attack on the Ancre front 
led the latter toward Bapaume from a slightly different 
direction. The minute the weather permitted, the 
British took up the fighting in the place they had left 
off, and on February 7th, in a great effort, compelled 
the Germans to evacuate Grandecourt, one of the 
defensive barriers to Bapaume. So strong were the 
British attacks, and so well supported by overwhelm- 
ing artillery fire, that three times in three days the 
Germans gave up trenches without a fight. By the 
1 6th of February they had made a gain averaging 
three-quarters of a mile in depth, and about six miles, 
wide. This was momentum indeed compared with 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 75 

the first attacks on the same front. The battle 
ground was badly cut up by hills and ravines, where 
troops often fought at close range, the British always 
pushing hard for every objective. On the 17th the 
British gained another half mile forward directly 
toward Bapaume, fighting past defenses that had been 
absolutely impregnable the previous year. By the 
25th the Germans were leaving all their prepared posi- 
tions on this front, straightening their lines. This 
had the effect of delaying further British attacks while 
the big guns were being brought up. 

Meanwhile, the Germans were preparing to carry 
out a plan which had for its object the wrecking of 
the English campaign, by the simple, if unexpected, 
method of retreating. The British and French ad- 
vances at the Somme had left the Germans in two 
dangerous salients, one north, one south of the battle- 
field. Continued pressure might lead to a sudden 
break and disaster. The German high command had 
no mind to let their army endure another four months' 
grueling under such difficult circumstances. The 
morale of the German soldiers had declined sensibly 
toward the end of the Somme campaign, as the weeks 
and months of constant pounding of British attacks 
had to be endured. 

Hindenburg conceived the plan of forming an im- 
mensely strong defensive position running in a straight 
line south from Arras to a point near Soissons. This 
would take his armies out of the dangerous salients; 
more important than that it would make it immensely 
difficult, almost impossible, for the enemy to attack 
anywhere along the new front for months to come. 
For an attack means guns, shells, transport, railroads, 
accumulations of weeks of labor. The Germans in- 
tended to nullify all the British preparations by leav- 
ing them stranded on one side of a desert. 

To this end the Germans made an absolute desert 
(■■ the country in front of their new position. The 



1/6 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

last few weeks before evacuating their old lines were 
spent in destroying every building, every tree, every 
stone wall, every railroad. The very roads were de- 
stroyed, especially at cross roads, where craters many 
feet deep were made by explosions. The British 
would have to rebuild the roads before they could 
bring up guns and supplies, and, when that was done, 
they would be in a bare country exposed to view from 
observation balloons and aeroplanes. The full object 
of the Germans in thus laying waste this region was 
not revealed until the following year when they began 
their great attack in exactly the same place. 

By the middle of March the new position was 
ready and the destruction was complete. British and 
French troops were suddenly aware that the trenches 
in front of them had been evacuated. All along a 
front of one hundred miles the Germans fell back. 
Their retreat could not have been conducted more 
skillfully or with less loss. They were compelled to 
fight rear-guard actions with the French and British, 
but in the condition in which they had left the country, 
it was not difficult for machine guns to hold the enemy 
to a slow advance. On March 17th the British en- 
tered Bapaume and Peronne. The French once more 
entered their beloved city of Noyon only to find deso- 
lation and evidence of crimes against the civilian in- 
habitants. The retreat continued until March 21st, 
when all the German forces were safely behind the 
defenses of their new front, henceforth called the 
Hindenburg line. It is singular that it was exactly 
a year later that they emerged to begin their last cam- 
paign. 

By their Somme attack of 1916, a questionable suc- 
cess at the time, the French and British had compelled, 
in 19 1 7, a retreat of the foe from territory many times 
larger than that which they won in actual battle. 
Here was the first fruits of victory. It was the Allies' 
hope to extend their success before the year was over, 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 77 

and to force the enemy out of another section of 
France. 

The Germans were disappointed in their hope of 
disabling the British offensive. It happened that the 
latter had prepared a blow at the very hinge of the 
Hindenburg line. This was the famous Vimy Ridge, 
near Arras. Here the Hindenburg line joined the old 
front; to break it seriously at this point was to dis- 
locate it throughout half its length. Vimy Ridge had 
been fought for, won, and lost several times during 
the war. Its possession by the Germans protected 
Lens, the coal city; its capture by the Allies would 
force the Germans out of Lens, or at least make the 
mines unworkable. 

The Battle of Arras began on Easter Sunday morn- 
ing, April 9th, with an attack on the famous ridge. 
British artillery had been ever increasing since 191 5. 
It had seemed that the utmost efforts of man's destruc- 
tive power was witnessed at the Somme, where a 
million shells a day had been fired in preparation of 
attack. But the use of shells at Arras was eight 
times greater than at the Somme, an almost inconceiv- 
able volume of fire. If Nenve Chapelle had seen 
more' ammunition used than during the Boer War, 
here were scores of Neuve Chapelles rolled into one. 
The English shell production in one day was now 
equivalent to eight trainloads of fifty cars each. 

When the bombardment ended, the British troops, 
largely Canadians, advanced to the taking of Vimy 
Ridge, the key of the position. The Germans had 
called Vimy Ridge impregnable. The Canadians cap- 
tured it almost with ease. In a few hours they had 
surmounted the summit, except at the far end, and 
were looking down upon the retreating Germans. 
The whole attack extended over about twelve miles, 
English troops being used in the other parts of the 
line. The attack was under the command of General 
Allenby, later to become more famous as the conqueror 



I78 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

of Palestine. One of the events of this battle was the 
carrying of a United States flag up Vimy Ridge by 
an American in the Canadian ranks. 

Here was a greater one-day advance than the Ger- 
mans had made at Verdun, greater than any yet made 
on the western front; eleven thousand prisoners were 
taken and over one hundred large guns. The British 
air service did remarkable work. Their numbers and 
feats were extraordinary; they absolutely prevented 
all German observation work, downing nearly fifty 
enemy planes during the day. 

The British and Canadians made further gains on the 
Monday and Tuesday after Easter. Then there was 
a period of holding against German counter attacks.. 
For the Germans were astounded and enraged at the 
loss of Vimy Ridge, and the high command ordered 
it retaken at any cost. For three days the German 
soldiers tried, but without success; the Canadians held 
on; the Battle of Arras continued, the scope of the 
battle being extended northward some miles and the 
British and Canadians being reenforced by Australian 
troops. They had apparently a chance of success, of 
a break through that would force a general retreat 
even as the Germans had broken the Russian lines 
on several occasions. 

The battle divides itself into two phases: (1) The 
victory and rapid advance of the British. In the first 
eighteen days of the battle, the British took eighteen 
thousand prisoners and two hundred and thirty large 
guns; against eleven thousand prisoners and fifty-four 
guns for the first eighteen days of the Somme. In 
addition they captured four times as much territory 
with exactly one-half as many casualties. (2) The 
bitter fighting against a reenforced enemy. For the 
expected break of the German line did not come. 
The enemy was still too strong; he could still rush 
troops to any threatened point. The British were able 
to hold their gains, but they did not greatly enlarge 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 79 

them, although the fighting continued for many weeks 
and the British losses mounted above one hundred 
thousand for May. About a third of these, a very 
high percentage, were killed. 

On April 16th, one week after the British began the 
Battle of Arras, the French began a great attack be- 
tween Soissons and Rheims. The British had tried 
to shatter one end of the Hindenburg line ; the French 
attack was against the other end. Here the German 
line still formed a salient; a French advance would 
make it a very dangerous salient. 

Neville, the new commander of the French armies, 
was known to favor an offensive war, and ever since his 
accession this attack had been in course of preparation. 
The French made an intense bombardment before the 
enemy attack, and in the beginning achieved the same 
sucess as the British. A two-mile advance was made, 
eighteen thousand prisoners were taken in three days. 
The French had developed an open system of infantry 
attack, designed to diminish losses. In this battle 
they used tanks for the first time. Laon was one of 
the objectives of the French attack and they continued 
to struggle toward it even after it was apparent it 
could not be taken. On May 6th they took Craonne 
Ridge and six thousand prisoners, advancing on a 
front of twenty miles. But the Germans, entrenched 
in St. Gobain Wood, were too strongly fortified, and 
the French could make no further advance in that 
direction. 

The French losses were terribly high, and there was 
almost a rebellion against the continuation of the 
battle. Neville had attempted the impossible ; he had 
tried to break the German line at a time when it was 
beyond the resources of the French to do it. The 
disaffection in the French army was promptly heeded, 
and on May 15th Neville was deposed and -General 
Petain appointed commander in chief. This change 
in leaders was immensely popular; Petain had thor- 



l80 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

oughly won the confidence of the French army and 
nation. A retired colonel at the beginning of the 
war, he had risen through genius to his present posi- 
tion. One of his first acts was to make Foch chief 
of staff. Foch had been practically retired by Neville. 
Under Petain's direction the useless offensive was 
stopped. France could not expend the lives of her 
soldiers until victory was in sight. 

By summer of 191 7 it was estimated that the 
Germans had brought about six hundred thousand men 
to the west front from Russia, bringing their fighting 
force up to two and one-half or three million men. 
Under these conditions it was impossible for the 
British and French to win the war by a sudden blow. 
If they broke through at any point there would always 
be German reserves in plenty to stop the gap. It 
seemed that the Allies must continue to tread the 
bloody road of attrition, a road that had recently 
been enormously lengthened — in prospect. 

The British army was at its highest state of effec- 
tiveness and numbers at this time, but it could not in 
those days beat down the German resistance. The 
enemy had drawn on the collective genius of the 
whole army and nation to fortify himself on French 
and Belgian soil. Defenses were made in great depth, 
that could not possibly be penetrated by the familiar 
method of bombardment followed by infantry attack. 
Under these conditions it was comparatively easy for 
the British to advance one mile, terribly costly to 
advance two miles, and practically impossible to ad- 
vance three miles in a single attack. And three miles 
would not take them half-way through the German 
defenses. The British commanders, realizing this, 
determined upon new tactics for the remainder of the 
year. Instead of an attack to gain objectives five or 
ten miles off, they planned offensive actions for strictly 
limited objectives, that could be taken without too 
much loss and held against counter attack. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. l8l 

The first attack under the new method was at 
Messines Ridge, which the British attacked on June 
7th. Messines Ridge was the southwesternmost part 
of a series of elevations that overlooked Ypres. 
From this ridge the Germans had looked down upon 
the British since 1914, had seen all their movements, 
had bombarded them accurately and incessantly. 
Ypres had long been a death trap for the British army. 
Scotch, Irish, Canadians, English, all had crouched 
in a sea of mud under the murderous fire of the Ger- 
mans, and had cursed the ridge that gave the enemy 
his advantage. 

Messines Ridge was taken, but to capture it British 
sappers worked for months tunneling under it, the 
greatest feat of the kind ever accomplished. On the 
morning of June 7th nineteen great mines were ex- 
ploded under the ridge in a roar that was distinctly 
heard in London. The German defenses were obliter- 
ated, craters forty feet deep were left where German 
cannon had been. The British troops advanced and 
took possession of the ridge, including about seven 
thousand prisoners. The greatest result of this short 
action was that it removed the menace of years — 
Ypres was no longer a salient. 

Meanwhile the Battle of Arras was continuing ; not 
as an attempt to advance further, but to halt German 
reserves. The British had captured papers revealing 
a prospective offensive by the Germans, but the force 
collected for the attack was needed for defense. The 
Germans were making great efforts to close the gap 
in the Hindenburg line, and attack was followed by 
counter attack. The fighting continued through June 
and July, the British striving to complete their con- 
quest of Lens, which they dominated. By the end of 
June sixty thousand prisoners and five hundred and 
nine guns had been captured on the western front by 
the French and British. 

On July 1st a brief Russian offensive startled the 



1 82 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

world with the hope or fear that Russia would fight. 
The British renewed their efforts on the west front 
to hold the Germans there. But the Russian effort 
nickered out. On July 31st the British and French 
together attacked near Ypres, enlarging their gains. 
Once more the British increased their bombardment to 
"greatest" proportions. The Germans made an espe- 
cially great counter attack on August 1st without 
success. They had adopted new defensive measures, 
consisting of brick and concrete dugouts, and machine- 
gun pits, instead of continuous trenches. But by the 
method of short advances, the attack stopped at the 
designated line, instead of rushing troops into machine- 
gun traps. 

The next forward movement of the British was to 
the north of Ypres, where, on August 16th, they ad- 
vanced though Langemarck, over ground that was 
Jost in the first gas attacks in April and May, 191 5. 
About the same time the Canadians took Hill 70, 
of Loos fame, gaining new command of Lens. Other 
actions occurred from week to week. The British 
no sooner made one short advance than they pre- 
pared for a new one. Aviators fought, observed, 
bombed daily, the advantage usually being with the 
British. On September 4th the Germans retired from 
considerable ground in the Ypres section. They had 
by now been driven from almost every bit of com- 
manding ground close to the city, and the British in 
their turn were slowly approaching Lille. The long 
ridge called Messines at its southern end was known 
as the Wytscheete Ridge, as a whole, or to the British 
soldier "Whitesheet." Bit by bit the British captured 
it, pushing back the Germans and also extending their 
gains in the lower ground. September 20th and 21st 
were days of great smashes, and on September 26th 
they broke through and made a considerable gain. 
On October 14th three thousand prisoners were cap- 
tured in a new attack. On October 23d one of the 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 83 

strongest attacks of the whole campaign was made, 
an action in which artillery, aeroplanes, tanks, and 
infantry cooperated most effectively. Twelve thou- 
sand prisoners were taken, in two days in an advance 
in which the British losses were not more than that 
number. 

On October 23d to 25th Petain made his first attack 
of consequence after becoming commander in chief. 
On the Soissons front his troops made a two-mile 
advance, taking twelve thousand prisoners. The last 
phase of the long series of battles at Ypres began 
on October 26th when the Canadians took Passchen- 
daele, the northern end of the long Wytscheete Ridge. 
The Germans were much averse to relinquishing the 
last bit of high ground in their possession, and contin- 
ued to counter attack until November 26th, when 
they gave it up, leaving the Canadians in charge. On 
October 28th the French and Belgians carried out a 
small offensive north of Ypres. This marked the 
close of the long contest known as the third Ypres 
Battle. 

The Germans in the Hindenburg line had been 
largely undisturbed throughout the campaign. There 
had been skirmishes in April, as the French and 
British tested the new line. But of serious fighting 
there was none. Roads and railroads had to be built 
up to the new front before an action of importance 
could begin. 

For more than three years the opposing armies on 
the west front had striven against each other. So 
evenly balanced were they that a practical deadlock 
had prevailed. A hundred German attacks had ended 
in failure; a hundred British and French assaults had 
ended in checkmate. If an attack pierced the first 
line, it broke down at the second. Defensive measures 
seemed to prevail over an attack. If troops attacked 
without previous artillery preparation, they ran against 
barbed wire defenses, machine-gun nests, and were 



184 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

sacrificed. If guns were concentrated, and barbed 
wire, trenches and other defenses destroyed, the bom- 
bardment served as notice to the enemy that his re- 
serves were needed at that spot ; and the reserves were 
always there ready to check the infantry after an 
advance of a mile or two. As long as attacks were 
made on ten or twenty or even fifty miles of front, 
the enemy was always able to bring up reserves in 
time to meet the danger. There was the alternative 
of the Somme method; of a battle of months, costing 
nearly a million casualties; or, of the revised method 
of Ypres, where a half year was spent in advancing 
five or six miles. None of these tactics had won vic- 
tory on a large scale. 

The strategists of all armies searched for a solution 
to this problem, searched for a means whereby they 
might make a successful attack without warning the 
enemy by a week of bombardment. The British found 
the answer in the tanks. But not for more than a 
year after the introduction of these weapons did they 
apply the remedy. On the 21st of November, 191 7, 
General Byng of the British army heralded the end of 
the war when, on that date, he assailed the Hindenburg 
line near Cambrai. Without any artillery warning 
he sent five hundred tanks against the German lines, 
which crashed through barbed wire, over trenches, 
and in one day advanced five miles, as far as four 
months of fighting had carried the British at the 
Somme. Ten thousand prisoners were captured that 
first day. 

Instead of the country for miles around being filled 
with reserve troops, as in the case of previous offen- 
sives, there was a gap and no troops to fill it. But 
the greatness of the success seems to have surprised 
no one more than the British themselves, for they 
were no more prepared to develop their victory than 
the Germans were to resist. If one hundred thousand 
men had been available and had been poured through, 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 185 

there might have been a disruption of the whole Ger- 
man position in France and a retreat to the frontier. 

But the British were not prepared to exploit their 
victory, and the German high command instantly saw 
the significance of the British success. Nine days 
later the Germans counter attacked, and, to the chagrin 
of the British, retook nearly half of the territory, and 
as many prisoners as they themselves had lost So 
determined were the Germans to wipe out the British 
success that they attacked one vital position nine times 
without success and won it in the tenth attempt. The 
British lost one hundred guns, the only ones the Ger- 
mans captured during the whole year. Some tanks 
were captured also. 

A company of American engineer officers of the 
twenty-sixth division were at work in the salient 
created by the British victory. They were laying rail- 
road tracks when the German storm burst upon them, 
but they dropped their tools, seized guns and joined 
in the fight. A few of them were killed and some 
captured. 

This was the last military event of the year. It had 
been a year of great British effort and of partial Brit- 
ish success. The British alone captured nearly 
seventy-five thousand Germans during the year, and 
one hundred and fifteen thousand prisoners on all 
fronts, the others mostly Turks; they lost twenty- 
seven thousand prisoners to the Germans. The 
French captured nearly sixty thousand German pris- 
oners. 

Both British and French made great progress in 
their aeroplane work during the year. On one occa- 
sion, one hundred French planes dropped fourteen 
tons of bombs on German military objectives. For 
the first time the Allies were able to make raids in 
force upon German cities, although they were scrupu- 
lous to bomb only places of military importance, as 



1 86 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

barracks, aerodromes, railroads, bridges, factories, et 
cetera. 

No scruples restrained the Germans in their mur- 
derous raids of English cities. They continued to 
discharge their bombs without regard to the character 
of the objects hit. They made twenty-rive raids on 
London in 1917, most of them being with planes; 
the Zeppelin was about discarded. On June 13th a 
daylight raid in great force was made that killed one 
hundred and four persons, and wounded four hundred 
and thirty-seven; twenty-six of the dead were school 
children. 

CHAPTER XX. 

ITALIAN DISASTER AND BRITISH TRIUMPH. 

The year 19 17 was a year of Italian disaster, 
though the blow did not fall until autumn. The early 
months of the year covered a period of offensive 
operations by the Italians. 

The Italians began their campaign on May 15th 
with an assault on the Austrian lines east of the Isonzo. 
The attack was on a front extending for many miles, 
or from Tolmino to the sea. In ten days ten thou- 
sand Austrian prisoners were taken ; a number later 
increased to more than twenty thousand. The gain 
in territory was small; the mountains were too great 
a barrier for rapid progress. 

In June the Austrians undertook a new offensive 
in the Trentino, in an effort to repeat their success 
of 19 16. But the Italians were not to be caught so 
easily this time, and the attack was without result. 
The next great Italian effort came in August, when 
they renewed their assaults east of Gorizia, in a grand 
attempt to clear the Carso plateau. For days they 
assailed the Austrian positions on the heights above 
Gorizia. The enemy held Monte San Gabriele, not 
far from Gorizia, and against this position the Italian 









HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1$7 

forces were hurled time after time, enduring heavy 
losses. It was their greatest battle up to that time. 
. But they were never quite able to win the mountain, 
were not able to use shells as freely as they desired. 
Trieste remained beyond their reach and the attacks 
died down. 

And now Italy was to feel the weight of a German 
blow. Germany had freed herself from the Russian 
battlefield and she now had the men to spare for a 
new campaign. It was too late in the year to begin 
a battle in France, but she considered that the possible 
gain from an Italian campaign was well worth the 
risk and the expenditure of men and munitions. 

There were elements of boldness in the proposed 
campaign; all the Italian battles seemed to show the 
impossibility of a rapid advance and quick victory in 
mountainous territory. But the Germans decided to 
make the attempt and set about planning and prepar- 
ing. Two or three hundred thousand German troops 
and a large Austrian force was mobilized and trained 
for the special difficulties and tactics of the coming 
battle. Certain other preparations were going on 
among the Italian troops with a view of weakening 
their morale. Leaflets printed in Italian were secretly 
distributed. These contained false information and 
venomous suggestions. Whisperings went about that 
the French would not supply guns to Italy, that Eng- 
land was not doing her share, and that the Germans 
were bound to win. The temper of the Italian army 
was well suited to the German plans. 

The Italian line of battle at this time was in the 
form of a sickle, it was the curved portion that had 
seen most of the heavy fighting, The extremity of 
the line, represented by the end of the blade, followed 
the course of the Isonzo River for some miles. For 
the most part it was east of the river, but at Tolmino 
the Italians had never been able to cross, owing to the 
difficult nature of the mountains. Tolmino, some 



1 88 • HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

twenty miles above Gorizia, was the northern limit of 
the battleground that for nearly two and a half years 
had seen the greatest efforts of the Italians. The line 
beyond Tolmino had been quiet for most of the time 
since the beginning of the war. The region was 
mountainous, the Austrians occupying the best posi- 
tions. This part of the front was held by the Italian 
second army, which was in part made up of troops 
that had never been under fire, and of others that had 
been inactive for months. 

On the night of October 23d a sudden and terrible 
fire burst from the Austrian lines on a very wide front, 
centering in this hitherto quiet sector. High explo- 
sive shells, mustard and asphyxiating gas shells, 
shattered the nerve of troops unused to heavy bom- 
bardments. In the case of some units, their morale 
was completely destroyed by the ordeal. All through 
the night the bombardment continued, but toward 
dawn, as the weather became stormy, the firing 
stopped, and the Italians believed they had been 
granted a respite. But the pause was a new German 
trick designed to throw the Italians off their guard. 

After daylight on the morning of October 24th, 
the Germans and Austrians launched their great attack 
without further bombardment. Advancing through a 
thick mist the Teutons struck the Italian lines without 
warning, overrunning the front trenches nearly every- 
where. Along the extreme northern and southern 
limits of the assault the Italian lines held, after the 
first recoil was over. But in the center, near Capo- 
retto, the Germans won a greater success than they 
had hoped. It was there that raw troops lost their 
morale and broke entirely. The mist was so thick 
that even after the Germans had captured the front 
lines, the Italian gunners did not see what was going 
on in front of them, and consequently did not fire their 
guns. This silence of their own guns added to the 
terror of the Italians, who broke and fled, and the 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 89 

Germans advancing came suddenly upon heavy artil- 
lery, the commander of which did not suspect the ad- 
vance of the enemy. 

The break was not wide, but the Germans speedily 
took advantage of it to spread the rout. The adjoin- 
ing Italian troops suddenly found themselves fired on 
from the rear as well as from the front, and they in 
turn joined the flight or were captured. General 
Cadorna, the Italian commander in chief, promptly 
sent reen for cements to the affected region, never doubt- 
ing but that the line could be made good by a retreat 
of a few miles. There were many mountains and 
gorges that should be easily defended, and he did not 
anticipate a serious defeat. General Cadorna was 
more than surprised, therefore, to receive from the 
commander of the second army an urgent suggestion 
for an immediate retreat to the Tagliamento River. 

This meant disaster, and Cadorna was slow to be- 
lieve the need for it. To fall back to the Tagliamento 
was to give up every mile of territory the Italians had 
won in the whole war, meant the surrendering of 
Gonzia, that had consumed months of herculean labor 
to capture. And more, the new line would be far 
inside Italian territory. He asked for details of the 
battle front at Caporetto, believing that the reinforce- 
ments must have checked the enemy. v 

But the enemy was not checked. Not only the 
troops first routed, but also many others, including 
some of the reserves, were now in flight. The panic- 
stricken Italians fleeing down toward the valley had 
jammed the passes and filled the roads, making it 
impossible for reserves to go forward. The panic 
spread to the reserves, as German spies in Italian uni- 
forms circulated among them, saying the war was 
over and it was time to go home. Prisoners by the 
thousand and guns by the hundred fell into Teuton 
hands. Cadorna was convinced. On the 26th, the 
third day of the battle, an immediate retreat of all 



IQO HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

the Italian armies was ordered. To delay was to 
have their retreat cut off by the advancing Germans. 

The Italians retreated none too soon; by the 27th 
sixty-five thousand prisoners had been captured; on 
the 28th Gorizia was retaken, as the Italians left it. 
It was only then that the world realized the extent 
of the Italian defeat. To have thus lost in four days 
all their gains of two and a half years seemed to 
threaten the worst that could possibly happen. Each 
day added tens of thousands of prisoners. On Oc- 
tober 30th the Germans were in the Italian plains 
country and had captured Udine, which had been 
Cadorna's headquarters. 

The Italian army was in full flight and the country 
was in a frenzy of fear. The entire cabinet was com- 
pelled to resign. On November 1st the Tagliamento 
was reached by the last of the retreating armies, and ; 
the Italians paused to reform. But Cadorna had 
already practically decided upon a further retreat. 
The utter destruction of the second army for the time 
being was so evident that it could not be relied on for 
any defense whatever. It was necessary to retreat 
to a shorter line that could be held by fewer troops. 

Except in the case of the second army, the hurried 
retreat was conducted with great skill, considering 
that the forces were entangled in mountainous sections 
with only narrow roads to depend upon. Most of 
the guns and nearly all the troops were withdrawn 
safely. It was only from the forces of the broken 
army that the Germans captured many prisoners. The 
flying soldiers filled the roads, and whenever a Ger- 
man force cut them off, they surrendered in large 
numbers. In one instance a bridge was blown up 
too soon, leaving many Italians helpless on the wrong 
side of the river. 

By the 5th of November the enemy was beginning 
to cross the Tagliamento. On the 10th the last of 
the Italian troops were behind the Piave River, which 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 191 

was the next natural barrier. The entire semicircular 
line — the blade of the sickle — had been evacuated. 
Two hundred and fifty thousand prisoners and twenty- 
three hundred guns had been counted by the Ger- 
mans in their fifteen-day battle, although the Italians 
claimed that laborers as well as soldiers were included 
in this number. 

There was no certainty that the Italians could hold 
their new line. So tremendous was the blow that it 
was doubtful if Italian morale would sustain the 
armies. It seemed almost probable that they would 
have to retreat many more miles before a solid front 
could be presented. Practically the entire population 
of Venice, only a few miles behind the line of the 
Piave, deserted their homes for refuge elsewhere. 

There was great anxiety in France and Britain over 
the situation. Allied helplessness had lost Serbia and 
Roumania. If Italy also should fall before the German 
advance, or if Italy should be forced to make a sep- 
arate peace under humiliating conditions, it would be 
a disaster of the first magnitude. The allied response 
to Italy's needs was prompt. By November 3d 
French and British troops were hurrying to the scene 
of action. About November 5th there was a meeting 
of all the allied premiers, in which Italy's crisis was 
the chief topic. Arrangements were made for ade- 
quate relief, and a supreme war council was formed to 
direct the cooperation of all the armies. General 
Cadorna was relieved of his command, General Diaz 
succeeding him. 

The Italians were no sooner behind the Piave than 
the Germans and Austrians were up in great force, 
attempting to cross. They first attacked along the 
line of the lower river, and for days persevered. But 
to the delight of Italy and to the relief of her allies, 
the soldiers held the river bank. The enemy then 
transferred his attacks to the mountainous region of 
the Asiago plateau, where no river intervened. Even 



I92 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

stronger attacks were made, continuing almost with- 
out intermission into December. The Italians yielded 
some ground, but their line was ever solid. 

A' considerable force of British and French divi- 
sions were in Italy by the middle of November, but the 
actual fighting was done by the Italian armies; to 
them belongs the credit for the successful defense. 
It happened that when the British went into line, 
activity ceased on that front. Yet, although they did 
not bear the burden of actual defense, there is no doubt 
but that the prompt dispatch of British and French 
soldiers was the one thing that saved the morale of 
the army and nation. The soldiers fought better 
for knowing there were strong reinforcements wait- 
ing. In artillery the Allies gave more actual help; 
and they pledged themselves to replace Italy's losses 
in guns. 

The German victory was of spectacular proportions, 
and served to fire the German people anew. In prac- 
tical results the advantage was not so plain. The 
Italians could fight equally well on the Piave as in 
the mountains and on Austrian territory. It may be 
said that the change of front was of benefit to the 
Italians in their final battle of the war, in that it 
placed them in a position to strike a hard blow more 
effectively than would have been possible in their old 
positions. 

All through the year 191 7 the Salonica army was 
inactive, as far as major operations were concerned. 
The principal occurrence was the forced abdication 
of King Constantine of Greece and the subsequent 
enlisting of Greece upon the side of the Allies. But 
what would have been invaluable aid in 19 15 was of 
little consequence in 19 17. 

Very early in the year the British set out to retrieve 
their fortunes in Mesopotamia, and to wipe out the 
disgrace of defeat and surrender. Whereas the 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 1 93 

former expedition had been ill equipped and hastily 
ordered, the new advance was in great force, with 
full preparation in munitions, transport and food. 
It was necessary to do the campaigning before the 
terrible heat of the desert summer came. So, in 
January, the British army, composed of Indian troops, 
Australians, and British, moved up the Tigris against 
the Turkish army. 

The British used the Tigris to transport their sup- 
plies as they advanced, and also used gunboats against 
the enemy. They early came in contact with the 
Turks, but constantly pushed them back, and on Feb- 
ruary 25th Kut-El-Amara was captured, after a great 
battle, in which the British used very heavy guns. 
It was at Kut-El-Amara that General Townshend's 
army was beleagured and captured in 191 6. The 
Turkish army fell back so rapidly, and the British pur- 
sued so closely, that the hundred miles between Kut- 
El-Amara and Bagdad was traversed in two weeks. 
On March nth the British entered Bagdad. They 
had achieved their first undisputed and decisive victory 
on land during the war. The ancient capital of the 
Caliphs had passed forever from Turkish and Ger- 
man control. 

With Bagdad as a base, the British intended to 
move against the Turks with the plan of crushing 
them against the Russians in Armenia. But the Rus- 
sian revolution occurred in time to destroy this co- 
operation, and the British once more were left to face 
the Turks alone. During the blistering heat of sum- 
mer little could be done, but in September the British 
began to advance again. However, not much could 
be done, the further object of the expedition having 
been removed. 

In March, 191 7, the British set out to traverse the 
oldest military road in history, that leading through 
Palestine. From the earliest dawn of civilization 
armies had marched along this road, as they sallied 



194 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

forth from the Cradle of the Race to seek out enemies. 
In the days when there were kings in Babylon, they 
sent their armies — their bowmen, their spearmen, and 
the war chariots — to ravage the cities of the coast. 
The earliest Pharaohs marched along this road that, 
even then, was old, as they went forth to conquer the 
tribes of Syria. Rameses, the greatest Pharaoh; 
Sennacherib, the ruthless Assyrian; Cyrus, the noble 
Mede; Darius, the proud Persian; Alexander, the 
Great, and Pompey, the Roman, all marched their 
armies through Palestine. 

The British had held the Egyptian frontier against 
several Turkish attacks; but by 191 7 they were strong 
enough to assume the offensive. There were immense 
difficulties in the way of an advance. The road was 
for many miles across the desert, where water would 
have to be transported. But the difficulties were 
overcome, and with a force composed of native Indi- 
ans, Australians, and English, the army set out in a 
careful advance. There was to be no rash advance 
to meet with disaster. It was late in March before 
the army was near the southern part of Palestine. 
There the British established themselves during the 
summer months, while they gathered supplies for the 
advance. There are no harbors on that coast, hence 
the transport of supplies entailed much time and labor. 

In the autumn the British were ready to advance. 
The Turkish army had long been stationed on the 
hills round about Beersheba, waiting for the expected 
attack. But the British preparations had been thor- 
ough, and under the leadership of an able soldier, 
General Edmund H. H. Allenby, who had recently 
come from the European battlefields, they assailed the 
Turks and drove them back everywhere. 

On the last day of October they captured the an- 
cient town of Beersheba, which was the southernmost 
town of Biblical Palestine. Henceforth the British 
fought on sacred ground ; they marched through 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 195 

valleys where Judges of Israel had fought the Midia- 
nites and the Philistines, and where Saul the King 
met defeat; marched over hills where David had 
grazed his sheep; marched past the forgotten sites of 
villages and towns where once dwelt kings, prophets, 
and apostles. The army of Gideon was not more 
valiant than the British army, nor was it led by a com- 
mander more brave or more devoted to a great cause. 

On November 7th General Allenby captured Gaza, 
and his soldiers beheld the ancient city of the Philis- 
tines, the gates of which had been carried off by 
Samson. Then began the advance toward Jerusalem. 
There were days of sharp fighting, the Turks were 
not disposed to abandon a prize they had held for 
centuries. But British generalship prevailed; the 
Turks were outfought and outflanked in every posi- 
tion, one after another. By the middle of November 
Jerusalem was practically besieged, and the British 
looked down upon the Holy City of the Jews and 
Christians, the prize of a score of world conquerors, 
the desire of millions of people. They drew closer 
until their lines occupied many a place famous in 
Bible history. British soldiers came to look up the 
little town of Bethlehem, where the infant Jesus had 
lain, and they marveled at the power that had so 
renewed the world. 

On December 9th the Turks evacuated Jerusalem, 
and on the 10th the British occupied it. With rever- 
ence, General Allenby marched in, not mounted, nor as 
a conqueror, but on foot, unarmed, and with head 
bared. The city that David captured and loved, the 
city the Assyrians besieged, the city Nebuchadnezzar 
destroyed, the city the Romans left in ruins, the goal 
of generations of Crusaders, the prize for which Rich- 
ard the Lion Hearted and Salladin fought, was now 
in the hands of a new victor. A simple English 
gentleman had linked his name with those of the kings 
and conquerors of the centuries. The streets, hal- 



196 history of the world war, 

lowed by the footsteps of Solomon, Isaiah and Paul, 
the city made holy by Christ, was forever purged of 
the barbarous Turk. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

RUSSIAN DOWNFALL. 

Russia began the year 191 7 an autocratic empire, 
passed the greater part of it a democracy, and ended 
it in unrestrained licenes and visionary imbecility. 
Almost overnight, the country was transformed from 
one ruled by a single man to one governed by a hun- 
dred million. The world was greatly startled by the 
news that, on March 15th, Czar Nicholas had abdi- 
cated his throne. The Entente Allies instantly inquired 
what the result would be on the war. 

Russia, ever the land of intrigue, was never more 
full of plots than just before the revolution. The 
autocratic leaders were never so blind as just before 
their fall, and their policy never so repressive. On 
January 1st the body of the monk, Rasputin, notori- 
ous for his influence over the Czar and Czarina, was 
found in a river, foreshadowing the end of the regime. 

The Russian assembly, the Duma, the only body 
with a representative character, was convoked in Feb- 
ruary; the government, however, did not propose to 
give it any power. But the day of its convening was 
the beginning of the revolution. The plight of the 
people in the cities was unbearable; hundreds of thou- 
sands were hungry, even though food was not scarce 
in the empire as a whole. But transportation had 
broken down, and there was disorganization in every 
branch of administration. The call for immediate 
action toward betterment was loud and fierce. The 
situation grew worse, as one hundred thousand work* 
men went on strike in PetrOgrad to give force to their 
demands. But the government clung to every phase 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. I97 

of its autocracy, and attempted to repress disturbances 
by force. The first hint of the extent of the disaffec- 
tion was shown when the troops refused to use arms 
against the strikers. 

On March nth the government ordered the Duma 
to dissolve, but the Duma refused. This was the 
signal for the final step toward revolution. Men's 
opinions and actions were suddenly unleashed in a 
torrent too strong for repression, culminating four 
days later in a demand for the abdication of the Czar. 
The Czar complied, helpless against the voice of the 
nation. Russia had suddenly discerned the weakness 
of the shackles that bound her. 

Three strong parties were represented in the revolu- 
tionary proceedings. One was led by Prince Lvofr, 
and was composed of the moderate and conservative 
Duma and its backing. Another party was led by 
Miliukoff, who represented the Constitutional Demo- 
crats. The third and strongest party was the socialist, 
which for the time accepted Alexander Kerensky as 
its leader. A cabinet, in which these three were the 
most prominent members, was formed, under Lvoff 
as premier ; Kerensky, named Minister of Justice, was 
the only socialist in the cabinet. 

The new government immediately took measures of 
great importance and sweeping character. Their con- 
stitution was restored to Finland, autonomy was prom- 
ised to Poland, the land monopoly of the nobility was 
destroyed, all the imperial aims of the Czar were dis- 
owned. Political offenders were pardoned; the 
shackles of one hundred thousand Siberian exiles were 
broken. Russia stood before the world a free democ- 
racy. 

And the world sincerely rejoiced. Russian free- 
dom was a great moral gain for the Entente Allies. 
The fact of their alliance with the most autocratic 
government on earth had been a source of weakness 



198 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

and a cause for reproach. The Russian revolution 
brought all the Allies under the banner of represent- 
ative government, and removed the fear that secret 
diplomacy would succeed in leading Russia to make 
a separate peace. The world was stirred by the dec- 
laration of the new government of its intention "to 
continue the war against Germany until victory was 
won." 

But it shortly appeared that the leaders of the 
Duma spoke with only their own voice. They were 
leaders almost without followers, and where they led 
the mass of the people would not go. The real power 
in Russia was the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council, 
formed at the time of the revolution. As its name 
indicated, it was composed of representatives of the 
laboring classes, whether in the army or out of it. The 
various communities sent delegates to the council and 
it was to the council that they looked for leadership, 
and not to the Duma or the Cabinet. 

The first attitude of the Workmen's and Soldiers' 
Council was fair and idealistic. But it was the ideal- 
ism that they followed that led them into the fatal 
paths of Bolshevism. In March, April, and May, 
191 7, the Council demanded, and the Cabinet passed, 
measures of the best intent, but, in some cases, with 
the worst result. The imperial police was instantly 
abolished, as the most hated body of men in Russia. 
Many individuals were executed for crimes committed 
under the old regime. All factories were placed under 
the control of the workmen, on the theory that only 
the actual laborers could wisely direct operations. 

It was in legislation for the army that the most 
fatal mistakes were made. Proceeding on the theory 
that every existing institution was the handiwork of 
autocracy and therefore evil, the Council proposed 
new laws and rules for the conduct of war and the 
government of the army. No longer were officers 
to have the power to punish private offenses of what- 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 10,9 

ever nature; the culprit was to be judged by other 
privates. No longer was a general to have the power 
to order a regiment into battle; the regiment would 
consider the matter in council and debate upon its 
advisability. Not even to the commander in chief 
was left power to order the larger movements ; he was 
to have a committee of soldiers to confer with him 
on each separate project. 

Measures calculated to destroy all semblance of 
discipline were ordered : saluting was no longer ob- 
served, familiarity with officers was encouraged; in 
fact, an officer no longer commanded anything. It 
was not long before Russian soldiers were fraternizing 
with the enemy, or were taking informal leave of ab- 
sence. 

In disgust, General BrusilofT resigned command of 
the army. He had announced to the world after the 
revolution that Russia would have the largest army of 
her history as soon as preparations were complete, and 
that it would be fully equipped. There is little doubt 
but that the complete defeat of Germany would have 
taken place in 19 17, had Russia fought as in other 
campaigns. Germany could no longer supply enough 
men to hold all her lines, and Austria would have 
crumpled under another grand attack. But it was 
not to be. General BrusilorT, however, was induced 
to retain command for the time, under prornise of 
support from the Cabinet. 

The Council was so flushed with its supreme power 
that it bent its energies to new and wider tasks. It 
believed itself capable of settling offhand all problems 
everywhere in the world. Renouncing itself all desire 
for gain, it called upon the Entente Allies to do like- 
wise. From a land of secret diplomacy and hidden 
forces of state, Russia was now a land of free dis- 
cussions of the most vital questions. Conscious of her 
uprightness in renouncing the demand for Constanti- 
nople, Russia called upon France and England to re- 



20O HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

nounce all gains acquired or expected. The new 
government proclaimed a policy of no annexations 
and no indemnities, and called upon the rest of the 
world to join them instantly. When MiliukofT ven- 
tured to declare in favor of acquiring Constantinople, 
he aroused such a storm that he was forced to leave 
the Cabinet. 

The Council now set to work to restore peace to 
the world. The Russian people wanted peace; and 
the Council proposed to give it to them by the simple 
method of ceasing to fight, believing that the other 
belligerents, both friend and enemy, would do like- 
wise. It was considered logical and inevitable that 
what had happened in Russia must happen in other 
countries : that, since they had overturned an auto- 
cratic government and stood as free men with evil 
designs against no nation, it followed that the Ger- 
man people would do likewise. The Russian leaders 
were persuaded that the mass of the people of every 
nation was in favor of a just peace, they assumed that 
a declaration of intentions would suffice to obtain 
peace. On May nth the Council voted for a Peace 
Conference. Germany accepted, but the Entente failed 
to do so, foreseeing no good result from it. A great 
socialist conference was to be held at Stockholm in 
June, as a medium through which the free peoples of 
the world were to arrange their differences. 

A new element here came into prominence. Among 
the many parties in Russia were some extremely radi- 
cal. They were not numerous at first, or even united. 
An agitator named Lenine had been in exile, but after 
the revolution he returned to Russia with a fund of 
German gold to further the peace movement. He 
was joined by another extremist, Trotsky, who had 
been in America. Together they placed themselves 
at the head of all the radical elements, by virtue of 
their agitation for peace and for the sweeping away 
of all capitalism. Their following at first was not 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 201 

large enough to force their policies into action, but 
they continued their work under cover. 

The peace conference came to nothing. Under the 
leadership of Kerensky, now Minister of War, the 
nation again declared itself against Germany. A Ger- 
man offer of a separate peace was refused; instead, 
the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council, on June 17th, 
voted to begin an offensive operation against Germany. 

This seemed to end the crisis, in the eyes of the 
Allies. Russian defection had threatened to undo 
all their efforts and sacrifices, threatened to turn the 
game into the hands of Germany. With the danger 
seemingly averted, the hopes of the Allies rose again. 
The United States had at once recognized the new 
Russian government and sympathetically offered every 
aid. Immense quantities of supplies were promised 
and delivered, and financial help given. A large com- 
mission of able men, headed by Elihu Root, was sent 
to Russia to give advice. It seemed that the greatest 
democracy would set the newest democracy solidly 
upon its feet. Practical help was given in railroad 
work, both in skilled men and in equipment. 

On July 1st the first offensive of new Russia be- 
gan. Under the direction of General Brusiloff an 
attack was made in the region near Galicia, where so 
many battles had been fought. With cannon in great 
numbers and shells unlimited, the battle was begun. 
In two days eighteen thousand prisoners were taken, 
and the Russians swept on as they had done a year 
previous. In two weeks thirty-five thousand pris- 
oners were captured. 

But there the offensive stopped, ended in incapacity, 
folly, shame, and dishonor. Disciples of Trotsky and 
Lenine circulated among the victorious troops and 
urged them to exercise their privilege of debate and 
decision. The attitude of Lenine is summed up in his 
denunciation of this battle as "treason against Inter- 
national Socialism." The troops of some units met 



202 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

to debate the advisability of continuing the offensive, 
each unit reserving the right to decide for itself. 
Under this applied idealism the offensive ended, in 
spite of the personal appeals of Kerensky, in spite of 
the example set by a battalion of women soldiers. 
One section voted to retreat and promptly carried out 
their decision. This left a gap in the line, and the 
rest of the army fell back in disorder. The retreat 
continued for several weeks, and gave the Germans 
more Russian territory than they had ever before 
held. 

The Russians had quit the battlefield for good and 
all. Henceforth Russians fought only Russians. Al- 
though twelve million soldiers, first and last, had been 
called to the colors, although their last army was 
almost their greatest, yet the Russians retreated shame- 
fully before a far weaker foe. In that retreat is seen 
the culmination of generations of superstition, of cen- 
turies of ignorance, of years of autocracy reacted 
upon by days and weeks of the new wine of license. 
The spy, the agitator, and the dreamer had together 
succeeded in ruining Russia. 

The remainder of the year was marked by the de- 
cline in power and numbers of the moderate party 
and by the growth of Bolshevism. Kerensky was made 
premier in July and practically a dictator in September, 
as the only strong man with influence. But his power 
was declining even then. By attempting to fulfill the 
demands of all parties, even of the most radical, he 
finally lost the support of all. In September General 
Korniloff led a revolt against the radical drift of the 
government. It would seem that he desired no more 
than to establish the government upon a sane basis, 
and had Kerensky joined him, much of what followed 
might have been averted. But Kerensky opposed and 
succeeded in overcoming his rebellion. It was the 
last hope of Russia. 

Meanwhile the Germans were making the most of 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 203 

their opportunity. They were now able to send hun- 
dreds of agents into the country to support the argu- 
ments of Lenine and Trotsky, as the latter were play- 
ing Germany's game. Indeed, there is evidence to 
support the theory that many of the Bolshevik leaders 
were paid agents of Germany and were betraying 
their country deliberately. Another form of German 
attack was the spreading of leaflets by aeroplanes, or 
otherwise, among the Russian soldiers, to the effect 
that the great Russian estates were being parceled out 
among the peasants. Eager to get their share of 
land, many of the soldiers deserted. In September 
the Germans advanced to Riga and beyond, almost 
without resistance. They had won another pawn to 
lay on the peace table. 

The Bolshevik point of view gained strength, as 
Kerensky failed to obtain peace for Russia. Ker- 
ensky was most insistant in his appeals to the Allies, 
to win from them a statement of peace aims that 
would satisfy Russian democracy. But England and 
France had decided that Russia was out of the war, 
that no good could come from any parleys. And 
when the Allied war council met in Paris in November, 
it failed to meet the Russian demand for a peace dis- 
cussion. The result of this failure was instantly felt 
in Russia. The Bolsheviki declared for peace, and 
obtaining control of the Workmen's and Soldier's 
Council, they overthrew Kerensky, and seized the 
reins of government, and the Russian red terror be- 
gan. Under a pretense of leveling autocracy and 
capitalism, they assumed for themselves a power as 
arrogant and dictatorial as that which the Czar had 
exercised, and they ruled with as little regard for the 
common rights of mankind and the dictates of hu- 
manity and common sense. 

A Bolshevik power was based on two things the 
people wanted, peace and land. By promising both 
of these, the disciples of the new doctrine gained the 



204 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

ear of the people. Lenine and Trotsky were not long 
in seeking peace. They opened communication at 
once with Berlin. The German and Austrian govern- 
ments responded gravely in words that fully met the 
Russian spirit of conciliation. The principles of 
peace as outlined left nothing to be desired. The 
Germans wrote of honor and justice, of liberty and 
equality, of national rights, of commercial union, and 
of the blessings of peace. The Russians agreed to 
a truce, during which the Germans made a peace pro- 
posal to be accepted, if at all, by the Entente as a 
whole. This offer lapsing, the Teutonic delegates met 
the Russians at Brest-Litovsk and proceeded to dic- 
tate the terms of a separate peace, terms that held 
no semblance to the principles of equity proclaimed 
in the German note. 

The Russians were called upon to give up Courland, 
Lithuania, and Poland, to submit to German control in 
matters of finance and commerce. Even the German 
and Austrian liberals cried out against the greed mani- 
fested in these demands. But the Bolsheviki were 
fairly caught in the trap; they had won power by the 
promise of peace, and the only peace they could gain 
was one too shameful for even Trotsky to accept. 

Russian disintegration began with the Brest-Litovsk 
treaty; the Germans holding the lands their armies 
occupied, the rest of Russia breaking into a dozen 
parts. Shortly after this, the Germans forced the 
Roumanians to accept a degrading peace that lasted 
only as long as the Germans had the power to enforce 
it. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE. 

From the time the defection of Russia was beyond 
question, it was evident to the Allies that in the coming 
campaign Germany would, after nearly two years of 
defense, take the offensive. The Russian collapse 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 205 

seemed to throw the war back to the winter of 191 5, 
when by the first great defeat of Russia, Germany had 
won an apparently free hand to deal with the west 
front. All the gains Britain and France had since 
made were valueless when weighed against the Ger- 
man success; the Allies had won bits of territory — ■ 
Germany had won campaigns. From their former 
position of ever-growing strength, the Allies were sud- 
denly confronted with the prospect of being outnum- 
bered and outgunned, a condition that was thought to 
be past since 191 5. The Germans were now in a 
position to withdraw all their effective troops from 
Russia and concentrate them on the west front. This 
she rapidly accomplished. 

Britain and France foresaw the attack and made 
preparations to meet it. But not knowing where the 
foe would strike, they necessarily had to prepare all 
along the battle line, especially on that part extend- 
ing from Ypres to Rheims. It was uncertain whether 
the enemy would again strike through Ypres for the 
Channel ports, or would take the shortest road to 
Paris, that leading down the Marne valley ; or whether 
he would attack the junction of the two armies with 
a view to separating the British from the French. 
The French commander believed the blow would fall 
between Soissons and Rheims, and he concentrated 
his reserves to protect the valley of the Marne. This 
created a situation that later was most dangerous to 
the Allies. 

The moral effect of Russia's defection was so great 
that had it not been for American help, the Allies 
might have consented to the best peace they could 
obtain, a bargain into which Germany would gladly 
have entered. For to face alone a year of German 
attacks in full force, as would have been the case, had 
not the United States come into the war, was to face, 
not only the prospect of several years more of dead- 
lock, but also the possibility of utter defeat. The 



206 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

Allies' man power was past its climax, and while the 
same was true of Germany, yet the latter had the 
advantage of a unified command and of years of prep- 
aration. 

But with the military strength and the material re- 
sources of the United States being mobilized behind 
them, France and Britain were fully resolved to hold 
on. They had only to weather the coming storm, 
knowing that it would be the last, and that beyond it 
lay victory. If the year 19 18 promised to be one of 
German success, on the other hand the year 1919 was 
sure to be the year of final triumph for the United 
States and the Allies. And it was to 19 19 that the 
Allies looked, as storm-tossed sailors look to the light 
breaking through the clouds. America would have 
two million trained soldiers to send against the war- 
weary Germans, and when that time came victory 
would be certain. 

It was with these hopes and aims and determinations 
that the forces of democracy waited for the German 
offensive. The governments and people alike were 
firm in their stand, and resolute in support of the 
armies. In France, Clemenceau came to the premier- 
ship to give renewed energy to war, and to still the 
whisperings of peace. In England, Lloyd George 
was as strong as ever and as unshaken in his aim to 
secure a knockout blow. In America, all parties were 
merged into one, and government and people were 
realizing the magnitude of their task, and were daily 
gaining in the material things of war. What were 
only plans in 19 17 were beginning to be realities as 
1918 dawned. The army and navy were increasing 
more rapidly than equipment could be furnished. 
The air schools were beginning to turn out graduates, 
and all branches of the service were developing skilled 
men with a rapidity that had seemed impossible. 

In all the nation there was not a voice raised for 
peace until Germany should be beaten. Men, whether 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 207 

congressmen or private citizens, who had opposed our 
entry into war, had stepped heartily into the conduct 
of it. It was unthinkable that the United States 
should give up until victory was won. There was 
no need for governmental urging. The people were 
more warlike than the government. The chief ac- 
tivity of the executive heads was in directing the en- 
thusiasm of the people into effective channels. 

In January, 19 18, President Wilson put into prac- 
tice his declared opinion that each nation should pub- 
licly announce its terms of peace. In a speech, he 
outlined fourteen points that were necessary to a just 
peace. Included in these as first essentials were: 
abolition of secret diplomacy ; freedom of the seas ; 
trade equality; reduction of armament; adjustment of 
colonial claims on the basis of the rights of the peoples 
concerned ; evacuation of Russia ; restoration of Bel- 
gium, northern France and Alsace-Lorraine; adjust- 
ment of Italy's frontiers ; autonomy for the various 
peoples of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; the evacua- 
tion of Roumania, Serbia, and Montenegro; re- 
organization of the Turkish Empire, including the 
neutralizing of the Dardanelles; the independence of 
Poland; and, finally, the forming of a League of Na- 
tions. 

If the Allies looked to 19 19 for their day of hope, 
Germany had her eyes on a nearer day. She must 
win in 1918, if at all. The German general staff had 
always ended the year with a great victory, had always 
produced a triumph to carry the nation through the 
long winters. In the winter of 1914 the German 
people rejoiced over the conquest of industrial France, 
the enslavement of Belgium, the defeat of the Russian 
hordes. In the winter of 191 5 they beheld the con- 
quest of a vast territory in Poland and Russia, and 
also the destruction of Serbia. In 1916 the ever- 
widening .empire was extended to embrace a great 
part of Roumania. In 191 7 there was the greatest 



208 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

triumph of all, the deliverance of mighty Russia into 
her power, and the terrible defeat of Italy. German 
morale was never stronger, German hopes were never 
higher than in the last winter of the war. For years 
the people had celebrated great victories, for years 
the children had applauded the news from the battle- 
fields, where their fathers were winning, always win- 
ning. And now, Germany had beaten all but two of 
her enemies, and all her armies were free to strike 
down those two, before the new foe, America, could 
prevent. Often had peace been promised, but as often 
had something intervened. Now there was nothing to 
come between the mighty German army and the 
enemy ; no Russia to strike in the back ; no Italy cap- 
able of drawing away reserves, no new assailant to 
spring upon an unwatched corner of the empire. Ger- 
many set her force toward the new day. 

The German high command recognized that the 
coming contest would be decisive. Their utmost 
strength was mobilized, their final reserves were in line. 
If they could not win in 191 8, they could not win in 
19 1 9, could not win at all. And they exerted all their 
strength to win. The whole nation spent the winter 
in feverish activity, the munition factories working to 
the utmost speed, and the longest hours, while the 
army was being put through its mental and physical 
preparations. Long weeks of training were admin- 
istered to the divisions that were to take the vital 
places in the campaign. The most minute instruc- 
tions were issued. Each army group was given its 
definite task, while the other units, all the way down 
to companies, were trained in their own particular 
part of the coming battles. 

The German government, always employing secret 
agents in every campaign, did not fail to call upon 
them for their final efforts. Every particle of infor- 
mation was desired, and utilized when obtained. The 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 209 

army commanders knew to a certainty the strength 
and identity of the troops facing them. 

Another form of campaign was that of giving out 
information to the enemy and to the world, informa- 
tion calculated to cause the foe to relax his efforts in 
the belief that there was no need for haste. News 
escaped of great riots for bread, of small rebellions, 
of- peace riots, of opposition in the Reichstag, of con- 
cessions to the demand for popular government. 
This was especially intended to impress America. 

As the time approached for the opening of the 
campaign preparations were transferred from the 
council table and the gun and shell factories to the 
battle area, where picked troops were being assembled. 
In order to surprise the enemy, all movement by day 
was absolutely forbidden, and all troop movements 
were made at night. The troops assembled were put 
through the most minute training, a division being 
chosen for a certain point of attack because of its 
familiarity with that ground. Nothing was left to 
chance. 

If the Allies were compelled to distribute their re- 
serves over a wide front to meet any contingency, the 
Germans, on the other hand, could concentrate, being 
the aggressors. This meant a great superiority at 
the place of attack. The Germans had by late winter 
a total superiority over the Allies , combined forces. 
They had nearly two hundred divisions actually in 
line, having brought fifty from Russia and Italy. 
This gave them more than two million troops. The 
French and British each had more than that number 
on paper, but in the actual number of men under arms 
they together had considerably less. What is most 
amazing is the indirect statement of Sir Douglas Haig, 
the British commander, that the British army in 
France comprised less than a million soldiers at the 
beginning of the battle. With their five million volun- 
teers in the British Isles, and their million more from 



210 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

the colonies, it would seem that the government should 
have maintained at least double that force. It is true 
that two million had been killed,, wounded or other- 
wise incapacitated, and Britain was the only country 
in the war that had armies on every battle front. 

The Germans had decided upon the right flank of 
the British army as the place of attack, whereas it 
was generally expected that they would attack the 
French. But to win against the French would, under 
the new conditions, be indecisive, while to defeat the 
British utterly promised to win the war. Therefore, 
Hindenburg and LudendorfT undertook to perform 
what was thought to be the harder task, to destroy a 
part of the British army and to drive the rest to the 
coast. 

The British line had been extended some time pre- 
viously until it occupied the front from Ypres to a 
point near Soissons. The British fifth army under 
General Gough held the southern flank ; General Byng's 
third army was next in line, and the first, fourth and 
second, commanded by Home, Rawlinson, and Plumer, 
held the northern front. The British force was about 
equally distributed along their entire front, each army 
commander making the best disposition possible of 
the forces at his disposal. In the cases of the third 
and fifth army there were twenty-nine divisions, of 
which nineteen were in line. They were held in 
three defensive zones a considerable distance apart, 
this being the best method of meeting an attack in 
force. In addition, General Gough had made a strong 
bridge-head position covering the Somme at Peronne. 
This was some miles behind the battle front and was 
considered an ultimate precaution. 

It was against the third and fifth British armies 
that the Germans planned to strike. They gathered 
their strongest divisions, set the time of battle, and 
waited for the hour. All along the line from the 
North Sea to the Vosges there were raids, bom- 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 211 

bardments and feints, heralding the attack but not its 
location. The air activity was the greatest known 
as each side attempted to add to its information — the 
Germans to map all objectives, the Allies to learn 
where the blow would land. In January the British 
lost fifty-two planes; in February one hundred and 
nineteen; in March one hundred and fifty-two; in 
April, when the battle was on, three hundred and 
nineteen. The German losses were even greater. In 
January they lost two hundred and ninety-two planes ; 
in February, two hundred and seventy-three, and in 
a little more than half of March, two hundred and 
seventy-eight planes were brought down. This illus- 
trates the frantic efforts of both sides to gain infor- 
mation and to prevent the enemy from doing so. 

The Germans now began their final campaign. The 
Kaiser proclaimed to his army and people, "We are at 
the decisive moment of history," as the soldiers left 

; their trenches to begin the Battle of Picardy. The 
veteran troops who had won fifty victories in a half 

! score lands were asked to win just one more triumph. 
All the force of forty years converged in that army, 

jto wing its feet and strengthen its blows, as it assailed 
the last battle line between Germany and world do- 
minion. No other battle in the world's history had 
seen such preparations; Verdun, the Somme, Donajec, 
all were dwarfed. Where the previous decisive battles 
of the world's history — Marathon, Chalons, Waterloo, 
—had been named for towns or even villages, this 
battle was to be known by the name of the province 
of Picardy, so far flung were its marchings. 

Along a front of more than fifty miles, or from 
Arras to La Fere, the Germans concentrated more 
than sixty divisions. In the point selected for the 
heaviest blow they placed forty divisions on a thirty- 
mile front, or fifteen thousand troops to the mile, 
against less than five thousand British to the mile, 
the latter divided among the three defensive zones. 



212 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

The battlefield included part of the Hindenburg line, 
as the line of departure. In front of the Germans 
was the old battlefield of the Somme, also there was 
the desert they had created when they retreated a 
year previously; and it was this laying waste that 
was to aid them in their swift advance. 

At five o'clock on the morning of March 21, 19 18, 
a terrible bombardment began all along a hundred 
miles or more of front, but centering in Picardy. 
The British trenches were deluged with a rain of 
steel, fire, and gas. There was a gun every twelve 
yards, nearly one hundred and fifty to the mile, thou- 
sands of guns on the selected front, besides machine 
guns, all pouring destruction into the British lines. 
The chief element in their success was the use of the 
mustard gas shells in great number. Mustard gas 
was the final word, it seemed, in torture and effective- 
ness. The Germans had the range of every town, 
road, cross road, within reach of their guns, and they 
accurately placed shells upon every objective. In their 
Somme attack the, British had bombarded the enemy 
for weeks, allowing the Germans to bring up reserves. 
In this battle the German guns were worked four or 
five hours only; they had not the intricate defenses 
to overcome and their more devilish shells were of 
greater effectiveness. Then came the assault. 

About nine forty-five a. m. the German infantry 
advanced through a thick fog that prevented the Eng- 
lish from seeing them more than fifty yards away, 
and especially kept the English guns silent. It was the 
Italian experience repeated. Fully half a million Ger- 
man soldiers assailed the British. The front line of 
the latter was lightly held, the plan being for these 
troops to hold on as long as possible and then fall 
back to the real defense line. But the Germans ad- 
vanced in overwhelming numbers, fifteen, twenty or 
twenty-five to one, and they swept over the British, 
killing or capturing them. The British fought to the 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 213 

last with rifles and machine guns, causing thousands 
of casualties. 

When the Germans reached the second line they 
were held up for the rest of the day, while their guns 
were being brought forward. The pause prompted 
General Haig to report that his line was holding. 
But on the second morning, also very foggy, the 
Germans were rushed forward again, without re- 
gard to losses, while their planes flying low poured 
machine-gun fire into the British ranks, and their 
thousands of guns continued to pound the rear. 
Early in the forenoon, by sheer weight of numbers, 
the Germans broke through the second defensive zone 
of Gough's army, Byng's line holding better. The 
fifth army retreated at once to the third zone, and so 
rapidly did the Germans follow that they had reached 
the third and last zone before night, and, in at least 
one place, had broken through it. That they were 
able thus to plunge through defensive lines was due 
in part to the tanks, the value of which General Byng 
had demonstrated the previous November. Some of 
General Byng's captured tanks were used against the 
British in this battle. 

As the third day of the battle dawned, on March 
23d, the situation was serious for the British. All 
their available reserves, ten divisions, had been thrown 
into line on the second day, and now there were ^o 
reinforcements that could be brought up for days to 
come. General Haig called on General Petain for 
help, and the French commander agreed to take over 
the southern part of the line as soon as he could collect 
the reserves. Meanwhile, it was up to the British 
fifth army to hold as long as possible, retreating only 
when necessary. 

But retreat was immediately necessary. Before the 
day was well begun, it was plain that they would have 
to retreat beyond their last prepared positions, and 
General Gough ordered the troops to fall back on a 



214 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

line with Peronne, on the Somme, where he hoped to 
make a stand. In doing so he lost touch with Byng's 
army, and a gap opened, as Byng's army pivoted on 
its left in retreating. On the night of the 23d the 
British were behind the Somme. The Germans were 
back in Combles, from which they had been driven in 
19 1 6. But the Somme could not be held, since low 
water, resulting from a dry spring, offered no obstacle 
to the German advance. On the 24th Peronne was 
evacuated by the British and occupied by the Germans. 
On this day the Germans made their first great ad- 
vance. Every mile of retreat left a longer line for 
the British to hold, a serious necessity, in view of 
their small and rapidly diminishing numbers. Already 
twenty-five thousand British had been taken prisoners 
and four hundred guns captured. The gaps which 
had opened between Gough's and Byng's armies had 
widened to several miles and there was not even a 
division to throw in. General Carey, of the British 
army, undertook to stop it with such forces as he could 
collect, American engineers, odd battalions from any 
source, and with these he kept the line intact for six 
days. Here was the Germans' great opportunity, 
fortunately lost. 

On March 25th the Germans were in Bapaume, 
which the British had fought so hard to gain. On this 
day the French assumed control of the territory south 
of the Somme, including all the British troops there, 
but few French re-enforcements were yet in line. The 
number of British taken had mounted to forty-five 
thousand, many more than had been lost in the whole 
of 19 1 7. The defenders were now utterly exhausted. 
They had fought continuously day and night, while 
the Germans were constantly using fresh troops. But 
no relief, no rest, nor even sleep was in sight for the 
British. They must hold on until their reserves were 
up, or the war was lost. On the north end of the line 
Byng had practically stabilized his line by the night 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 21 5 

of the 26th, although the town of Albert, a great 
British base, was taken on the 27th. But this ended 
the German advance at that point. 

Elsewhere on the line the 26th was the day of the 
greatest German gain. They swept on after the re- 
treating British, suffering heavily from the bullets of 
the machine gunners left by the British to fight rear- 
guard actions. Many a detachment of one hundred 
or more British fought until they numbered ten or 
less. There was a great effort to hold the Somme 
farther west, but the Germans crossed at Bray, which 
put them in the rear of the British, who had to re- 
sume their refreat. On the 27th they swept on again. 
The Germans were now far beyond their line of the 
previous years, were in territory they had not seen 
since 1914. They had recaptured all the ground 
evacuated in Hindenburg's strategic retreat. 

By the 28th the Germans were making their last 
great advance. French reserves were being stationed 
along a line chosen for a final stand, and on the 29th 
eight divisions of British came up, relieving the 
broken army of Gough, whose troops were tired 
enough to sleep under shell fire. On the 29th the 
drive was definitely halted. The Germans on that 
day ran up against newly prepared defenses and fresh 
troops> and although they tested the new line with 
strong attacks in a dozen places they could not break 
through. The Germans had far outrun their own 
guns and tanks and were as weary as the retreating 
British. They could do no more. They had captured 
seventy thousand prisoners in eight days and had taken 
eleven hundred large guns. 

But to the German high command the battle was 
not going well. They were seeking, not a spectacular 
victory, but a crushing success that would win peace. 
And the later phases of their advance did not promise 
to fulfill expectations. Everywhere along the new 
front they met with firm resistance. They did not 



2l6 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

desire to go south toward Paris, in spite of the re- 
ported declarations of the Germans that they would 
dine in the French capital shortly. The aim was to 
continue westward toward the sea, and cut the British 
from the French. They needed to go only to Abbe- 
ville, and they were more than half way. But they 
had made a salient, and did not dare to enlarge it at 
the tip as long as the sides held firm. On March 
30th the Germans advanced to Moreuil, their farthest 
point, and on the same day Clemenceau visited the 
front, and after seeing the troops and defenses, gave 
assurance that Amiens was safe, which was the vital 
point. 

Failing to enlarge their gains on the left of their 
advance where the French were holding, they changed 
their attack to the other flank. On March 28th they 
began an attack at a new point, assailing the British 
lines from Arras northward, with an especially strong 
attack on Vimy Ridge. If they could push this line 
back they could safely resume their advance through 
Amiens. But tO' their surprise the line was immov- 
able. At Vimy Ridge they made repeated mass at- 
tacks that melted under the direct fire of the British 
gunners. They could not break through even the 
first main defense zone, and gave it up. This was 
really the critical moment of the battle, and doubtless 
spelled defeat to LudendorfT; for, as long as this line 
held, he could not send his armies deeper into the 
salient. Vimy Ridge, with the comparatively few 
miles on either side, was the only part of the British 
line that held firmly throughout all the months of 
German attack. The British and Canadians even re- 
stored their outpost positions by a sharp attack. 

Thwarted here, the Germans returned to the south, 
where once more they assailed the front near Montdi- 
dier, and the junction point of the Allied armies. 
They tried as they had never tried before, but beyond 
a few scant gains, they went without success. The 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 2\J 

first phase of the German offensive was over. In 
spite of the almost paralyzing victory, their attack was 
essentially a failure in that it did not produce the 
expected result. The Germans at Amiens were worse 
off than they had been at St. Quentin by exactly the 
sum of the men they had lost; and they were better off 
by exactly the sum of British soldiers they had put 
out of action. In striking a balance they met with a 
deficit they could not face with pleasure. 

They did not pause for long. On April 9th they 
assailed the British line south of Ypres. The front 
here was in part held by a considerable Portuguese 
force. Attacking on a front of twenty miles between 
Ypres and La Basse%they succeeded in breaking the 
lines in two places, leaving the British at Armentieres 
almost an island in the German torrent. The worst 
break was on the line held by the Portuguese who 
gave way entirely. Here the Germans advanced four 
miles in one day. 

Once more the world was startled by a break in 
the British lines; once more the Germans broke into 
new territory, this time into a region they had never 
seen. The advance continued through the second and 
third day, Armentieres being abandoned. Twenty 
thousand prisoners were counted in the first three 
days. The continuance of the advance would take 
the famous Ypres position in the rear and create a 
situation almost beyond repair. On April 12th Haig 
called to his soldiers to fight to the end, saying that 
their backs were against the wall. The new attack 
was as strong as the first had been. Altogether thus 
far the British had felt the weight of eighty German 
divisions, of which at least half had been hurled into 
battle more than once. 

But the British held. They continued to yield 
ground slightly, but their continuity of line was never 
in danger. Checked by the British at one place, the 
Germans now widened the front of attack by assail- 



2l8 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

ing the position immediately east of Ypres, including 
the famous Messines-Wytschaete Ridge. By the 16th 
they had recovered a part of this, which the British 
had spent half a summer in gaining. On the same 
day they made a two-mile advance at Bailleul on the 
oppsite side of Ypres, putting them within thirty miles 
of the coast. On the 17th the Germans finished the 
conquest of Messines Ridge and occupied Langemarck. 
The British drew back their lines close to the ruined 
town. Ypres was once more a salient, a worse one 
than it had been during the two bloody years. On 
April 1 8th the Germans made a supreme effort to 
crash down resistance, but failed, and the attacks 
ended for a time as the troops were exhausted. 

On April 24th there was a renewal of attack against 
the French in the Amiens salient, continuing until the 
27th. The first division of the American army was 
brought into immediate reserve behind the Avre River. 
Failing here, the high command ordered a last great 
attempt to take Ypres. On the 25th one hundred and 
twenty thousand Germans savagely assailed the line 
southwest of Ypres, and on the 26th advanced two 
more miles, taking Mont Kemmel and capturing sixty- 
five hundred French. The possession of Mont Kem- 
mel made the capture of Ypres, with all that it meant 
to the British army, almost certain. But the British 
were never braver nor more tenacious than when they 
were in a tight place, and they now held the Germans 
to their tracks, although the mightiest assaults contin- 
ued without intercession for four days. The most 
terrible German losses of the war occurred in those 
four days, as the German commanders sent their bat- 
talions into the fight time and again, in a vain attempt 
to carry out the orders of the "all highest.' ' 

By the first day of May the attacks had died down 
to small local actions. The second phase of the Ger- 
man offensive was over. The attack at Ypres, re- 
sulting in a new bulge known as the Lys salient, was 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 2ig 

undertaken as a first aid to the stranded advance 
through Amiens. If the Germans could cut in behind 
the Arras-Vimy position from the north, they would 
compel a British retreat either back toward the sea 
or south beyond the channel ports, away from all 
their bases. But it was a vain, if splendid, conception, 
and met with no more than a local success in territory 
that cost a fearful number of German casualties. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

EMERGENCY MEASURES AMERICAN CRUSADERS. 

The tremendous German victory came as a stupe- 
fying surprise to a w r orld that had assumed a British 
battle line to be impregnable. Many times during 
the course of centuries had the "thin red line" clung 
to defenses under conditions almost hopeless. Never 
had so large a British army been on the defensive as 
the British army of 19 18, never was an army sup- 
posedly better able to maintain itself. To a world 
that accepted Russian, Austrian or Italian reverses 
as a matter of course, a disaster such as this to the 
British, of all armies, presaged the capture of Paris, 
the defeat of the Allies, the loss of the war. Any- 
thing, even to the occupation of a third of France, 
seemed possible in the days of March that brought 
the news of a British break. The Germans seemed 
supermen indeed, so greatly did their prowess terrify 
and impress the world. 

To none of the Allied countries was the disaster a 
greater shock than to the British themselves. The 
English public, taking no heed of technical causes of 
defeat, inquired with one voice why the line was so 
thinly held, and demanded that adequate measures be 
taken. There was no hint of panic in Britain, much 
less in the army. There was frank facing of the 



220 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

defeat and the probable lengthening of the war. But 
none talked of peace. 

Premier Lloyd George was not slow in his efforts 
to support Haig. He promised that the loss in men 
and guns would be fully made up in a short time, and 
he proceeded to make good his word. A German 
invasion of England itself had been a specter held 
up to Britons, and the authorities had always reck- 
oned it among the possibilities. To meet it a very 
large force had at all times been kept under arms in 
England, composed mainly of troops partly trained, 
but numbering many thousands of veterans also. 
This force was now stripped of every serviceable unit, 
and several hundred thousand soldiers were rushed 
across the channel. All furloughs were cut short, and 
London, which had always been filled with men in 
khaki, now saw none but wounded men for weeks. 

Calls were made upon outlying forces; the British 
divisions on the Salonica front were withdrawn in 
part, and General Allenby's campaign against Damas- 
cus was delayed for six months by reason of every 
British unit being called to France. The work of 
conscription was strengthened and exemptions nar- 
rowed. There was a strong demand that conscription 
be applied to Ireland; but, recognizing that it would 
take a considerable army to enforce it, the law was 
held in abeyance as far as Ireland was concerned. 

The work in munition factories was rushed to re- 
place the losses in guns and shells. Several British 
bases had been captured with the resulting loss of 
vast stores of supplies of all kinds, clothing, food, 
medical supplies, as well as shells. The loss in aero- 
planes^ also, had been great, and the home industries 
were at work under forced draft that England might 
maintain command of the air. 

By the third or fourth day of the battle all the 
Allied leaders, both military and civil, were in confer- 
ence, debating upon measures to meet the needs of the 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 221 

hour. Lloyd George and General Wilson of Britain, 
Clemenceau, Joffre, and Petain, speaking for France, 
canvassed the situation; while America was repre- 
sented by Colonel House, who was the personal repre- 
sentative of President Wilson, and by General Per- 
shing. Inevitably the thought of the conference turned 
to the subject of a supreme commander as the best 
solution of the problem. France had long desired the 
appointment of a generalissimo of all the Allied forces. 
Certain of the British leaders, including Lloyd 
George, were in agreement as to the need of this, 
but the British army, as represented in its general 
staff and the highest officers of the force, as well as 
the general body of the British aristocracy, were op- 
posed to a supreme commander. To them it was 
unthinkable that the greatest British army ever created 
should be subordinate to the chief of a foreign army, 
even though it should be Joffre himself. General 
Sir William Robertson, the chief of the British im- 
perial staff, resigned as a protest against such a move. 

But the situation demanded that one general be 
made responsible for the entire Allied force in France, 
as the only way in which duplication of effort could 
be prevented, and the only assurance that the fullest 
use would be made of opportunities and the wisest 
handling«of reserves. To the demand of France was 
added the mandate, in no uncertain terms, of the 
United States, as voiced by President Wilson. With 
their own premier exerting his influence against them, 
the ^British army conservatives yielded, agreeing to a 
unified command. On March 29th it was announced 
that an Allied commander had been chosen, and that 
General Ferdinand Foch had been selected to carry 
the burden. 

General Foch had long been recognized as one of 
the foremost of the Allied commanders. With more 
than forty years of military experience, he was 
familiar with every phase of the present war, knew the 



222 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

topography of the battlefield in its whole length. He 
had the confidence of the British army as well as of 
the French. In 19 14, 191 5 and 19 16 he had been in 
cooperation with British armies by reason of his com- 
manding at the points of junction. At Ypres, at Loos, 
and at the Somme, he had fought beside the British. 
Jofrre proclaimed him ''the foremost strategist" of 
Europe. As in the American Civil War, it took years 
of disappointment and failure before the right man 
was given command, as McClellan, Hooker, Pope, 
and Burnside had been tried and found wanting, so 
the Allies had given their destinies to Generals French, 
Jofrre, Neville, Haig, and Petain, and none of them 
had produced victory. Even so had the Germans, 
Russians, and Italians tried generals that had either, 
met defeat or failed to win victories. It was literally 
true that neither Germany, France nor Britain had 
won a clear-cut offensive victory on the west front 
until the great German blow in March, 19 18. The 
first Marne and Verdun struggles had been defensive 
triumphs for France; the two conflicts of Ypres had 
been the same for France and England together; the 
Somme battles had been a doubtful victory for Eng- 
land. But never yet had the Allies won a real victory. 

In the crisis the Allies turned to Foch; and Foch 
took hold of affairs at once. Petain had already pro- 
vided reinforcements for the threatened front, and 
on the day of his appointment, Foch visited the battle 
area and inspected the defenses. He then assured 
France and the world that Amiens and the battle line 
were safe. On March 30th Clemenceau also visited 
the front, and he too gave his word that the Germans 
would be held. 

But Foch recognized that the danger was not over, 
and he proceeded to reorganize the armies to meet the 
crisis. Both French and English had hitherto organ- 
ized their own front independent of the other, with 
only general agreements as to dates and places of im- 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 22$ 

portant actions. Each commander handled his own 
reserves, and only on two or three occasions had one 
army called on the other for help in actual battle. 
Foch's first act was to pool all reserves. The world 
looked to him for an immediate counter offensive, not 
realizing that it was neither possible nor wise. It was 
not possible because he had no army reserve beyond 
the few divisions scattered along the line of battle, and 
these had to be kept there for emergencies. It was 
not wise because the Germans would inevitably attack 
again, and this attack must be met. To use his few 
reserves prematurely was to be ruined. Foch had 
first to build an independent reserve, an army detached 
from any particular sector. The Germans had main- 
tained such an army, and with it had successively 
crushed Serbia, Russia, Roumania, and had almost 
broken Italy. 

To build this reserve would be a matter of weeks 
and months. It would have to be mobilized, organized, 
and armed. The greatest source of new troops was 
America, and it was to America that Foch looked for 
help. On the day that General Foch was made com- 
mander in chief, General Pershing himself tendered 
the entire American army in France to be used as 
Foch saw fit. The offer was accepted, and the avail- 
able troops were brought from Lorraine to a section 
near the battlefield. There were only four divisions 
in France that were fully trained, and two more nearly 
ready for action, but this made a force considerably 
in excess of one hundred thousand. It was America's 
first hundred thousand. 

To thus turn his soldiers over to Foch was to leave 
Pershing without an army, was to delay his dream of 
a separate American army fighting on its own battle 
line under its own commanders. The time was rap- 
idly approaching when two army corps could be or- 
ganized, when the crisis came to disrupt Pershing's 
plans. But Pershing, the officers, and soldiers, and 



224 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

the government and the people at home, gladly sacri- 
ficed their own plans for the common good. There 
was great enthusiasm in America over the new author- 
ity of Foch and his prospective use of American sol- 
diers. To have our soldiers idle in camp while France 
and Britain were battling through the greatest crisis 
in history was intolerable; to have them fighting be- 
side the Allies was the one thing America desired. 

The American people did not at that time know how 
many of their soldiers were in Europe. They had 
Secretary Baker's statement that a half million Ameri- 
can soldiers would be in France "early in the year." 
As a matter of fact, there were, at the end of March, 
19 1 8, three hundred and seventy-five thousand men 
across the Atlantic. But it was apparent that many 
more were desperately needed at once. 

The administration had proceeded on the under- 
standing that the critical year would be 19 19, and the 
energies of the nation were being pointed so that all 
branches of the service, soldiers, sailors, ships, aero- 
planes, ordnance, and munitions, should be ready in 
adequate numbers and quantities. The War Depart- 
ment had been assailed for its efforts to speed troops 
to Europe during the winter of 1917-1918, on the 
ground that the Allies needed supplies more than they 
did soldiers. 

Up to the time of the crisis the transportation of 
troops had increased each month, with one exception. 
The navy had taken over the larger vessels and had 
fitted them out for transport service. From three 
ships sailing in May, 191 7, the number had increased 
to sixteen by December. About ten British ships 
were in service as transports during that period. In 
March twenty-six American ships, and nineteen others, 
carried more than eighty-five thousand troops. 

It was then that the German storm burst, and the 
nation woke up to the fact that soldiers were the first 
need of the Allied cause. In a moving appeal to Presi- 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 225 

dent Wilson, Lloyd George asked that the movement 
of United States troops be hastened. Clemenceau 
and Foch pressed the matter upon General Pershing 
and the other American representatives in France. 
But to bring more soldiers, more ships were needed. 
America was already using every available vessel, and 
new ships were not being completed fast enough to 
meet the crisis. It was England that solved the prob- 
lem. Although her merchant marine had been terribly 
depleted by submarine ravages until there were barely 
enough ships for necessary carrying, yet England 
furnished the ships. 

In an agreement entered into between Generals 
Pershing and Haig on May 2d, England was to supply 
transportation for as many soldiers as were needed, 
and in return, was to have ten divisions of Americans 
as reserves for her own battle front ; these ten divisions 
to come from among those to be transported, their 
final training to be made in the British battle area. 

But England had not waited for an agreement be- 
fore calling her ships from all parts of the world. 
From her South African trade she withdrew every 
ship that was available as a transport. From the 
safe waters of the Indian Ocean she called her ships 
to the perilous Atlantic ; from the Pacific trade routes 
the larger British vessels vanished for months to come, 
leaving the carrying trade to Japan. Many ports of 
the British Empire were left entirely without steam- 
ship service for the time being; Cape Colony saw no 
'ships for months, while all steamers plying between 
Australia and Singapore were withdrawn. Alto- 
gether, more than one hundred and fifty British ships 
were diverted from their regular routes to carry 
American soldiers and supplies to France. The num- 
ber of British ships in transport service increased from 
fourteen in March, and twenty in April, to about 
seventy-five in May, seventy in June, while in July 
there were eighty-nine sailings. Thereafter the 



226 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

number of ships decreased to seventy- four in Aug- 
ust, with a lesser number each succeeding month. 

Meanwhile American ships in transport service had 
increased from twenty-seven in March, to thirty- 
eight in April, fifty-five in May, and forty-six in 
July. By reason of their greater number of ships, 
the British were able to transport the larger part of 
all troops sent across from May to October. In July 
they carried slightly more than one hundred and 
seventy-five thousand, which was fifty-six and one- 
half per cent of the total for the month. In all, the 
British carried forty-eight per cent of all United 
States soldiers sent to Europe, while American ships 
carried forty-six per cent; the remainder being con- 
voyed by French and Italian vessels. 

The British liner, Olympic, carried three hundred 
thousand soldiers during the war; British, Canadians, 
Australians, and in the last year, Americans. The 
Leviathan, formerly the German liner Vatcvland, car- 
ried more soldiers each trip than any other vessel; 
ten thousand troops was the usual load. The Great 
Northern, a swift liner from the Pacific coast, made 
the quickest round trip. 

The number of soldiers carried across the Atlantic 
increased in an amazing manner. To transport one 
hundred thousand men across land and water to a 
distance of three to six thousand miles in a month, 
would have been considered impossible before the war; 
to move that number each month for several succes- 
sive months would have been called a dream. But 
the crisis demanded much more than that of America, 
and America, with the aid of Britain, fulfilled the 
need of civilization. March, 1918, was the high 
month up to that time, but in April forty-five thou- 
sand additional troops were sent across. 

But it was in May that the great flow of American 
soldiers to France began. Two hundred and forty- 
seven thousand, seven hundred and fourteen men, or 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 227 

more than double the April figure, were carried safely 
across the Atlantic. In June the number went still 
higher, when two hundred and eighty thousand were 
transported, while in July the magnificent total of 
three hundred and eleven thousand, three hundred 
and fifty-nine soldiers went over the bridge of boats. 
This was equivalent to picking up the entire popula- 
tion of Kansas City, Missouri, and placing it in France. 
Three hundred thousand a month meant ten thousand 
each day, or the equal of the population of many a 
thriving little American city. On the other hand, to 
illustrate how small a part of our number is three 
hundred thousand, imagine an army of that size cross- 
ing Brooklyn Bridge. If the men were so spaced as 
to march at the rate of four miles an hour for twenty- 
four hours a day during the entire month, there would 
be only about one hundred soldiers on the bridge at 
any one time. 

The speeding of the men to Europe necessitated 
great activity in the training camps at home. All 
through the late autumn and winter, the camps had 
been scenes of hard, continuous work. During that 
time the men had grown accustomed to their new 
life: learning first the rudiments of drill, then evolu- 
tions in platoon, company, regiment and brigade, and 
the use of arms. 

To many it seemed unlikely that all of the soldiers 
in camp, particularly the draft men, would ever 
get to France ; so large was their number and so 
slowly were they being transported. But when the 
call came, every camp saw activities redoubled. 
Troops began to leave their winter barracks to en- 
train for a camp of embarkation on the Atlantic coast. 
As rapidly as ships were provided they went aboard 
and were soon upon the stormy Atlantic. Some of 
the camps were emptied in a very few days, yet all 
was done without a visible strain upon the railroad 
systems of the country. 



228 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

The first division of selective service men to cross 
was the Seventy-seventh, composed of men from New 
York City. The undersized boys from the East Side 
were for the first time in their lives away from their 
city environment. The sons of rich men rubbed 
shoulders with laborers and clerks, and formed lasting 
friendships together. Other troops to cross early in 
the year were the men from Missouri and Kansas in 
the Thirty-fifth National Guard division, and the 
"Wild Cats," or the Thirtieth division, from the moun- 
tain States of the South. From all camps they came, 
from Camp Lewis on far off Puget Sound, from 
Camps Grant, Dodge, and Funston on Western plains 
and prairies, and from the camps in the South and 
East. 

The emptying of the camps was the signal for a 
new draft upon the manhood of America, and in the 
two months following the first rush to Europe nearly 
a million more young men were drafted and sent to 
the camps. Vacated National Guard camps were re- 
filled with selective service men. So rapidly was the 
training of these new men that they in turn were 
being sent to France by autumn. 

On February 5th the British transport Tuscania, 
carrying more than two thousand American soldiers, 
was torpedoed off the north coast of Ireland, and one 
hundred and seventy troops were lost. The American 
people were face to face with their first disaster, and 
although it was taken for granted that similar losses 
would follow, there was no flinching. The wonder 
was that there had not been more sinkings. It was 
an especially agreeable bit of news to the German 
people. The German government increased the re- 
ward that was offered to any submarine crew that 
should sink a troopship. 

But there were no more sinkings of eastbound 
transports. These vessels never sailed singly, but 
always in large convoys, well guarded by a strong 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 22p 

force of naval vessels. Destroyers, converted yachts, 
small cruisers formed a cordon about each group of 
transports, and never again was a German submarine 
able to penetrate the guard, although many tried. 
From fifteen to fifty or more ships made up a convoy 
group. This plan delayed the faster ships, but with- 
out it many would have been sunk. The United States 
navy supplied more than eighty per cent of the naval 
guard of the transports ; and as the navy grew, freight 
boats as well as troopships were given protection. 

It was because of this watchful care that the Ameri- 
can army was safely carried to France. It was a 
feat of organization and naval skill unequaled in 
history. Never had so tremendous an undertaking 
been carried through to success. It was the decisive 
factor that brought defeat and ruin to Germany, who 
had staked her future on the supposed impossibility of 
an American army fighting in Europe. 

Meanwhile America and the Allies were girding 
themselves mentally and spiritually for the ordeal. 
To Germany's appeal to a final decision by force, the 
Allies rallied to meet it with yet greater exertions. 
The utmost that Germany could do only called out 
greater efforts on the part of her opponents, who 
never did their best until their backs were against the 
wall. Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and Wilson each 
declared for war to the finish. In a Liberty Loan 
speech in April, 19 18, President Wilson declared for 
"force without stint, force to the uttermost. ,, The 
most significant thing about this was that it but re- 
flected the spirit of America, already firmly fixed in 
the minds of the people. 



23O HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE ALLIED LINE HOLDS. 

There was a long pause after the great German 
offensive in March and April. On the last day of 
April the Germans made one of their strongest at- 
tacks, but the next day and for several weeks after- 
ward operations dropped with a startling suddenness 
to a minor character. The daily bulletins told of 
small actions in which twenty or fifty, or at most two 
or three hundred prisoners, were taken — a contrast to 
the world-shaking battles of the preceding weeks. 
Here was seen the great defect of the German plan 
of attack: the troops fought until they were utterly 
exhausted and had to be withdrawn for rest and 
reorganization. On several occasions during these 
and o # ther battles the Germans had important gains 
almost won, but were unable to take advantage of the 
situation because their troops were tired out. 

The weeks immediately following the first of May 
were spent by the German command in refitting. their 
army for a new attack. The units were given a short 
rest, then, with their ranks refilled, they underwent 
the customary special training for specific objectives 
that were always allotted to each division. The supply 
of munitions, particularly of gas shells, was renewed, 
and the time was set for the new attack. 

The Allies expected the attack to come on the Pi- 
cardy front. It seemed natural that the Germans 
would seek to enlarge their valuable gains either to- 
ward Paris or toward the sea. They had destroyed 
and overrun the permanent defenses of the Allies and 
faced only hastily constructed obstacles. The most 
dangerous success possible would be a farther advance 
of twenty miles through Amiens westward. General 
Foch concentrated his main reserves in the vicinity of 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 23I 

the Amiens salient. Willing to yield ground where 
it would be costly to defend it, and where its loss would 
not be vital, he was determined that no more gains in 
Picardy should be permitted. And Ludendorff was 
evidently satisfied that success was too uncertain to 
risk his reserves and material, in spite of the tempting 
prize of victory. He had discovered that he could 
not safely penetrate deeper into the salient as long as 
the sides held firm. The Picardy salient was a finished 
episode in his view. He planned an attack in a new 
place, along the Aisne between Rheims and Soissons. 
It was there that the French had expected the first 
attack, but they had since withdrawn the reserves 
gathered there, a fact of which the Germans were 
fully aware. 

The front of the Aisne River had been the scene of 
many of the war's bloodiest battles. It was there 
that the Germans made their first stand after they 
retreated from the Marne in 19 14, and it was the 
deep trenches north of the river that enabled them to 
hold their conquests in France. It was upon this 
strong position that the French had hurled attack 
after attack in the years 1915, 1916, and 1917, ex- 
pending the lives of hundreds of thousands of their 
soldiers in efforts to break the German lines. They 
had made small gains, particularly in 191 7, and now 
their front lines were several miles north of the river. 
The main defense zone was on the Chemin des Dames, 
a position of great strength under deadlock conditions. 
In view of the extreme difficulty with which the 
French had won the position, it seemed that it could 
be defended with success. 

But the Germans discounted all ordinary defensive 
positions in their new method of attack. Proceeding 
on the fact that a position needed defenders to hold 
it, they made war against the defenders rather than 
against the position. Following what was known as 
the Von Hutier method, they won their amazing sue- 



232 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

cesses by exterminating the front-line defenders by a 
deluge of deadly mustard gas. Following this they 
sent over their troops in mass attack, and so rapid 
was the advance there was no time for the defenders 
to receive reinforcements. Defenses that had been 
almost invulnerable through the previous years were 
thus easily overrun in 19 18. It was by this method 
that the Germans had won in Picardy and Flanders; 
they were now ready to use it again in a new place. 

While the Allies waited for the attack, they made 
the most of the time granted them. The British 
army was undergoing a great reorganization and re- 
equipment. One of the factors that Ludendorfr 
counted upon in his coming battle was the supposed 
inability of the British army to reform effectively 
after its great losses in March and April. The new 
attack would be against the French army, in the belief 
that the British, like the Russians, Serbians, and Rou- 
manians, had been eliminated, at least temporarily, and 
would not be able to interfere. But this was not the 
case, as events proved later. The English army, with 
French and American aid, could have destroyed the 
two northern salients after the middle of May, but 
Foch was biding his time. He was waiting a better 
time to begin his attack, and the Germans were them- 
selves bringing the hour closer. 

The four weeks between the second and third offen- 
sives were weeks of intense activity in the air; planes 
were circling constantly, watching the enemy lines. 
Scores of raids were made upon the German lines, 
upon their communications, their ammunition dumps. 
Every town behind the lines — Peronne, Noyon, Ba- 
paume, St. Quentin — was bombed, always with a mili- 
tary objective; while British and French planes were 
making frequent visits to industrial cities on the Rhine 
and beyond. Many tons of bombs were frequently 
dropped in a single raid. The daring aviators were 
often in enemy territory for six hours or longer. The 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 233 

German cities now had a taste of what London en- 
dured. 

LudendorfT began his new attack on Monday, May 
27th, with about four hundred thousand men, of whom 
nearly three hundred thousand were in battle the first 
day. After a three-hour gas attack that destroyed 
the resistance of the outposts, the German shock 
troops rushed upon the defenders. The Allied line — 
four British divisions were in that sector, having 
been sent there for recuperation — was lightly held, 
as it was not a part of Foch's plan at that time to try 
to hold the lines immovable. The Germans quickly 
overran the Chemin des Dames, advanced to the Aisne, 
and were actually across the stream before the end of 
the day. The world was once more startled and dis- 
mayed by the news of the German success. Nothing 
seemed to stop them. Every one questioned if this 
was not the final blow that would disrupt the Allied 
line. 

The attack was made along a front of about thirty 
miles. The break of the first day was on a narrow 
front, but on the second day the Germans pushed their 
advance along the eastern end of the battle, while on 
the 29th, the third day, they made an even greater 
extension of the advance to the west, reaching Sois- 
sons, which had not been in German hands for nearly 
four years. Meanwhile the center of the line was 
being pushed rapidly southward, across the Vesle, a 
tributary of the Aisne, while prisoners, numbering 
many thousands, were being captured. 

The French commanders were prompt in their 
measures to cope with the situation. The Germans 
had made strong feints both in the Picardy and Lys 
salients, but by the end of the first day there was no 
question as to where the main attack was being made. 
The reserves were rushed to the Marne. But Foch 
made no attempt to keep the Germans from reaching 



234 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

the Marne. Therefore, on the fourth day of the 
drive, the Germans once more reached the famous 
river that had been the scene of their first great de- 
feat, taking forty-five thousand prisoners on the way. 
The Kaiser announced to his people u God has granted 
us a splendid victory." 

Foch may well have said the same, as he watched 
the course of the battle, for the Germans were play- 
ing directly into his hands. If he did not attempt 
to stem the advance of the German center, he was, 
on the other hand, careful to hold them at the vital 
points, and that he was able to do so proves his mastery 
of events. He put in reserves at Rheims, and kept 
the enemy out of the famous cathedral city. But the 
important front was along the western side of the 
new salient. If the Germans, after reaching the 
Marne, could push westward, they could soon broaden 
the new front so as to connect with the Picardy salient. 
That accomplished, there would be one huge bulge into 
French territory instead of two dangerous salients, 
and the succeeding campaigns would have been im- 
possible. 

Therefore the bulk of his reserves came to the 
western side of the salient, and there they held the 
enemy firmly even while the Germans were still ex- 
tending the point of their attack. On the 31st of 
May they arrived at the culmination of their drive, 
having reached the Marne on a front of some twelve 
miles, or less than a third of the width at the base. 
It was then that they encountered firm resistance 
everywhere. The first strong check was experienced 
when they attempted to advance down the Aisne valley 
from Soissons to Compiegne, a feat that would have 
been serious for the Allies, if accomplished. They 
did succeed in extending their new advance so that 
it overlapped the Picardy salient at the base, but when 
it came to a thrust against a vital point, they were 
checked so sharply that the result was unmistakable. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 235 

Thereupon the Germans turned south and met the 
Americans. 

The Germans had met the Americans hitherto only 
in small actions; now they were to meet the foe from 
overseas in a real battle. Several American divisions 
had been in reserve in the American region since the 
crisis in April. When the call came for reserves for 
the Marne front, two American divisions, the second 
and the third of the regular army, the former includ- 
ing two regiments of Marines, were rushed to the new 
battlefield and put into line at the southwestern tip 
of the salient, covering the crossing of the Marne at 
Chateau-Thierry, and extending for some distance on 
each side. The Americans came at a critical time. 
Ludendorff was making a most desperate attempt to 
break through to Paris, and only some worn, dazed 
and nearly broken French divisions intervened between 
him and the open country. As the Americans came 
forward they met retreating Frenchmen, who warned 
them that the Germans were coming. 

Pitted against crack German guard regiments, proud 
of their record and scornful of the "raw recruits," 
were the American boys who had never been in battle, 
but who fully understood that to them was given the 
keeping of the line. On June 3d the Germans met 
the Americans in force, and that day was the first in 
which they made no advance. The Americans stopped 
and threw back an important attack leading to Neuilly 
Wood, serving notice to the German troops, to Luden- 
dorff, to the Kaiser, and to the world that the soldiers 
from the United States had arrived. 

The Germans had managed to throw a force across 
the Marne, but on June 4th the Americans attacked 
this force and drove it back across the river, in their 
first action of real importance. Some prisoners were 
left in American hands, and altogether the Germans 
were made to feel that the new enemy was to be re- 
spected as a fighter. Americans fighting beside vet- 



236 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

eran French troops yielded not a particle in bravery, 
dash, skill or training, and their presence greatly aided 
the morale of the French. By June 5th there was 
fighting all along the west side of the salient, as the 
Germans desperately tried to turn their half success 
into a complete triumph. The Germans had just 
marched thirty miles from the Aisne to the Marne; 
had carried their standards to within forty-four miles 
of Paris; surely they could go a few more miles. 
Only the untried valor of American soldiers stood 
between them and a great, perhaps final, triumph. 

But not only did they fail to advance ; they were 
actually driven back. On the following day Ameri- 
cans in an attack near Chateau-Thierry advanced a 
mile on a narrow front, taking coveted ground. The 
second division arrived after the third and was im- 
mediately confronted with the necessity of taking the 
village of Vaux and Belleau Wood, strategic points 
that menaced their line. Vaux they took in masterly 
style, battering the stone buildings to pieces, and driv- 
ing out the unwounded defenders. On the 7th of June 
American Marines began to feel their way forward, 
and on the 10th and nth they made their great assault 
on Belleau Wood, pushing clear through in fighting 
of the most desperate character. The Marines were 
not to be denied, even though the whole German army 
opposed them. They fought as if their own fray 
were the crucial battle of the war, and their steps were 
always forward. From tree to tree they advanced, 
against machine guns and bombs, and at the end they 
had won entirely through to the further side. The 
Marines compelled the respect of the German army in 
those two days' fighting and earned their title of 
"Devil Dogs." 

The Germans had already given up their attempt tQ 
advance by the west flank, and had turned their at- 
tention elsewhere. They now attempted to gain the 
same objectives from a different starting place. Re- 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. . 237 

turning to the Picardy salient they made a gigantic 
attack on a twenty-mile front extending from Montdi- 
dier to Noyon. This new blow took them in the 
direction of Paris, but Paris was far off, and their 
immediate aim was to flank the French out of their 
immensely strong position around Compiegne, and to 
join the two salients. If they could repeat their 
thirty-mile advance in this new sector, they considered 
the war would be practically won. In new ground 
thus gained, they could mount their immense guns and 
proceed to pound Paris to pieces, if indeed the very 
threat of doing so did not bring peace. 

The Germans had performed one of the spectac- 
ular feats of warfare when they began, on March 
2 1 st, to bombard Paris from a distance of more than 
seventy miles. But this gun was intended to exert a 
moral effect. Because of the immense distance the 
shells were comparatively small, and at so great a range 
could be aimed only at the city, not at any particular 
objects. The killing of a number of worshipers on 
Good Friday was altogether an accidental hit. But 
if they could plant their cannon within thirty miles, 
Paris would be at their mercy; they could accurately 
place shots on any objective. If they had succeeded 
Paris would deliberately have been laid in ruins. 

But for once, Ludendorff's plans and Foch's ex- 
pectations coincided. Full preparations were made to 
receive the blow at the very place where it actually 
fell. And now began the real battle, as a French 
officer expressed it. The advance to the Marne was 
but a stepping-stone to the success the Germans hoped 
to win here; that other advance was valuless unless 
this also were made. If it suited Foch's purpose to 
have the Germans reach the Marne, it was highly im- 
portant that they should not advance farther south of 
Noyon. 

On June 9th the Germans began what, for the 



238 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

narrow front involved, was their mightiest attack. 
They used three hundred thousand men and every 
resource at their command in their attempt to break 
the French line. The area for some miles in the rear 
was deluged with gas shells. Then shock troops car- 
rying light machine guns rushed forward to take ad- 
vantage of whatever breaks might develop in the 
French line. The Germans were able to advance 
about six miles at the point of greatest penetration, 
nearly as far as they had gone in the previous offen- 
sives. But the Allies were beginning to solve the 
problem of meeting the Von Hutier method. Hold- 
ing his main bodies of troops beyond the reach of the 
artillery, the French commander quickly advanced 
them when infantry action began. It was on artillery 
also that the French relied to check the German attack. 
This attack having, been foreseen the French had a 
great concentration of guns, and they were able to 
meet the assaulting troops with a fire that in destruc- 
tive power was never excelled. 

On June nth, the third day of the battle, the 
French made a counter attack in great force, meeting 
the Germans man for man. Tanks supported the 
troops and the French checked the advance of the 
Germans, taking only a thousand prisoners, but inflict- 
ing tremendous losses. German shock troops that had 
been trained for months melted away in a vain attempt 
to push on. The French not only held the enemy but 
actually recovered about a mile of territory. It was 
a tremendous defeat for the Germans, who had en- 
tirely failed in their fourth great offensive. They 
had set Compiegne as the second day's objective but 
were not able to get more than halfway. On the 12th, 
13th, and 14th, they continued to attack in the direc- 
tion of Compiegne, but the first onslaught having been 
broken they were utterly unable to resume their ad- 
vance. By June 15th the fourth offensive was defi-. 
nitely over. The Germans had already won their last 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 239 

victory when they reached the Marne, but sought to 
gloss over their final defeat by dwelling on the fact 
that they had taken seventy-five thousand prisoners, 
including two generals, since May 27th. 

Then followed another long pause, during which 
the Germans prepared another blow. During this 
time the Germans made no serious attacks whatever. 
But for the Allies it was a per,iod of continuous activ- 
ity. There was hardly a day in which they did not 
make a small attack somewhere on the battlefront. 
On June 20th and 21st American soldiers made small 
advances at Cantigny and Chateau-Thierry, while the 
British and French made a number of raids at vari- 
ous points. On the remaining days of June there were 
battles on a small scale, in which the Allies, either 
French, Italian, English, Canadian, Australian, or 
American, gained their objectives, which were more 
often prisoners and information rather than position. 
On the fourth of July Australians, aided by Ameri- 
cans, attacked in front of Amiens and gained ground 
and prisoners. The cumulative effect of all these 
Allied attacks was considerable, and clearly fore- 
shadowed the end of their preparations. 

The Germans were near desperation as they saw the 
months pass without final victory and peace. They 
had made splendid advances, but when they tried to 
finish the enemy, to deliver a last crushing blow, they 
had always been checked. But it was impossible to 
stop without confessing defeat: they must go on. 
Ludendorff planned a last battle, which was heralded 
as the "Peace Storm." He now planned to enlarge 
the Marne salient to the east and south, and at the 
same time sweep down from the east of Rheims in a 
wide advance. Chalons was his immediate objective; 
once there, he would be beyond all prepared defenses, 
and might be able to finally crush the French army. 

It was absolutely vital that Foch and his generals 
should know where this new attack would fall, and 



240 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

when it would take place. They could not now afford 
to yield more ground, but unless they were able to 
prepare with exact knowledge, they could not hope to 
check the Germans until after valuable territory had 
been taken. All their raids from June 15th on were 
for the prime purpose of ascertaining where the next 
German offensive would be launched. In the Lys 
salient, near Amiens, around the curve at Montdidier 
and Noyon, in the Marne region and from Rheims 
eastward, the Allied commanders felt out the enemy 
lines, kept in touch with all his divisions, knew of his 
movements and plans, while the air service was ever 
watchful for large troop movements. As early as the 
1st of July the French scouts reported that the new 
blow was to come on both sides of Rheims. 

With this vital point settled, preparations were 
completed to meet the attack. Foch planned to check 
the new offensive at the outset — to hold the Germans 
in their tracks, instead of falling back as before. 
The French line east of Rheims was commanded by 
General Gouraud; the section southwest of Rheims 
was in charge of General Berthelot. These two gen- 
erals, under the direction of Foch and Petain, made 
the most minute preparations to meet the assault. As 
the time drew near there was new confirmation of 
the German plans. By the 10th of July it was settled 
that the attack would occur either on the 14th or 15th; 
but not content with that the French sought even 
more exact information. Oh the evening of July 
14th a French officer, Lieutenant Balestier, and four 
men, made a bold dash into a German trench. They 
returned with the exact information that the attack 
was to begin the following morning at four-fifteen, 
that the preliminary bombardment would begin at 
midnight. It was fatal to the Germans that the 
French were in possession of this information. Their 
own bombardment was anticipated by an hour by the 
French artillery, and before the German guns opened 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 24 1 

fire, every French piece was being worked as rapidly 
as possible. 

On the morning of July 15th the Germans began 
their last great attack, destined to failure from the 
first. The soldiers left their trenches at the appointed 
time and started to overrun the French trenches. 
But General Petain had devised a method of meeting 
the hitherto unstopable Germans. The real defense 
was made in a second line some distance behind the 
front, so that the Germans, in a sense, launched their 
blow into air. This plan involved, however, the sac- 
rifice of practically all the troops that occupied the 
front line trenches. In this battle every Frenchman 
in these trenches was there with the full knowledge 
that he had only one chance in ten of surviving. Their 
mission was to lose their lives that France might be 
saved, for it was largely upon their efforts that the 
success of the defense depended. They were to form 
islands of resistance in the German flood, to delay 
the advance, to split and divide assaulting columns. 
And they played their part most valiantly. In some 
cases small bodies of troops held out all through the 
day. It is impossible to overestimate the value of 
their resistance. They were heroes who were, never 
to be welcomed home. 

All along a sixty-mile front the Germans attacked. 
East of Rheims, the Rainbow division of Americans 
was in line under General Gouraud, and most coura- 
geously did they hold their part of the front. The 
Germans were held absolutely when they came to the 
principal defenses, and only one or two very slight 
advances were made. Here the check was so de- 
cided that the Germans gave up their attempt in dis- 
may. 

The only success the Germans achieved was between 
Rheims and the Marne, and also along the Marne. 
The first day they made an advance of a mile on a 
front of three in one place, and the same day threw 



242 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

a large force across the Marne, penetrating a few 
miles beyond, and five miles upstream toward 
Epernay. At one place, however, the second and 
third American divisions threw back a force across 
the Marne, and of twenty-five thousand who crossed, 
ten thousand were left as casualties. 

For three days the Germans continued their attacks, 
not to win their grandiose objective — that was impos- 
sible of realization after their repulse — but to gain 
some show of success that would maintain their 
supremacy until a new blow could be planned. Their 
gains thus far measured a few scant miles, a poor 
reward for the immense cost in casualties. 

But the German hour was over. By reason of their 
tremendous efforts they had exhausted themselves. 
Every gain they had made, the three huge salients 
they had created, served only to hasten their defeat, 
while the soldiers who might have held the Hinden- 
burg line against all assaults were sacrificed against 
the Allied defense. 

The German Empire had celebrated its last victory; 
had won its last bit of territory; just one hundred 
days separated it from complete downfall. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

THE ALLIED COUNTER OFFENSIVE. 

The lessons of the Battle of Cambrai, in which 
General Byng had broken the Hindenburg line by the 
use of a great number of tanks, were taken to heart 
by both the French and the English, who began to 
construct these clumsy yet effective machines by the 
hundred. It was upon these, as well as upon re- 
enforcements of soldiers, that Foch waited, during the 
months of the German offensive. He was not to be 
tempted to begin his own campaign until he was fully 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 243 

ready. The French constructed tanks that were much 
smaller than those used by the British. They were 
called the Whippet tanks, and were capable of con- 
siderable speed — as fast as men could run — instead of 
the lumbering, crawling pace of earlier types. Being 
small they were much harder for the enemy to hit, 
but they were just as invulnerable to bullets or small 
shells. 

The w r orld expected offensive warfare from Foch; 
it had been his favorite maxim that victory could be 
won only by attack. When the months passed with- 
out an assault, the non-military world wondered and 
waited. But Foch's time was approaching; he kept 
his finger on the pulse of the battles, applying pressure 
when the course of warfare threatened his armies. 
While, as a Frenchman, he must have regretted the 
second German -eruption over the fair fields of the 
Marne and the lower Somme, and mourned over the 
thousands who once again were compelled to flee their 
homes, as a general he must have rejoiced at the turn 
events had taken. There was no more favorable 
position possible for him than that which the Ger- 
mans themselves had created. The safety of the 
Kaiser's armies in the three salients depended abso- 
lutely upon the inability of the Allies to strike back. 
The Germans assumed that their enemies were so 
badly beaten they could not possibly undertake a gen- 
eral offensive during the remainder of the year. 
Never were their calculations further from the truth. 
Not only had the Germans placed themselves in posi- 
tions that invited attack, but by reason of their offen- 
sives and the losses resulting from them, they had 
deprived themselves of the men necessary to a success- 
ful defense. Risking all in the hope of the highest 
gains they doomed themselves to failure, complete and 
final. 

Foch was not entirely ready to begin his counter 
offensive in the middle of July, The British armies 



244 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

would not be ready for two weeks, at least, and not 
all the French were entirely prepared. It was only 
by reliance upon large numbers of American soldiers 
that an offensive was possible, and Foch was doubt- 
ful if the Americans were ready for operations on a 
large scale; as yet only two divisions had been tested 
in real battles. It was vital that a counter offensive 
be successful. To begin one while the outcome 
seemed doubtful was to risk all chance of success for 
the rest of the year. But General Pershing was very 
sure of his men, and urged General Foch to trust to 
their valor and zeal. And the great French general 
decided to make his attack with American assistance. 

While the offensive was in course of preparation the 
German attack of July 15th was also imminent, and 
it was necessary to first check this. As early as the 
nigh of July 15th Foch was satisfied that the German 
attack was a failure, and that he could proceed with 
his own assault in safety. Even though the Germans 
continued to advance during the next two days, it 
was upon a very narrow front ; the main advance had 
been definitely checked. 

The great assault was planned to take place along 
the western side of the Marne salient, or from a point 
near Soissons to Chateau-Thierry. The plan was to 
crush in that side of the salient, even while the Ger- 
mans were attacking along the east side. Two French 
armies were given the task of winning the first Allied 
offensive of 19 18. One, commanded by General 
Mangin, occupied the line between the Aisne and the 
Ourcq rivers, or the northern sector; the other, by 
General Degoutte's army, extending from the Ourcq 
to Chateau-Thierry. The first and second American 
division were attached to General Mangin's army; 
while the third division of the regular army, the 
Twenty-sixth or New England division, and the 
Twenty-eighth, composed entirely of Pennsylvania 
troops, were with General Degoutte's army, and were 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 245 

all stationed near Chateau-Thierry. The Twenty- 
sixth division relieved the Marines, who had fought 
so long and so hard at Belleau Wood and adjacent 
territory. 

On July 1 8th the last phase of the great war began 
with the assault of the Franco-American armies. In 
the advance begun there, the Germans were started 
on the great retreat that did not thereafter pause a 
moment until they were finally beaten to submission. 

The battle began without artillery preparations. 
Preceded by a great fleet of tanks, and by a tremen- 
dous rolling barrage fire, the troops left their trenches 
at four forty-five a. m. and started across the country 
toward the German lines. The attack was a complete 
success, due largely to the fact that it was a great 
surprise to the Germans. Officers and men were 
captured by hundreds in their dugouts before they had 
time to emerge. Entire headquarter staffs were 
taken, hundreds of guns, large and small, were cap- 
tured. The French and Americans swept on over 
first, second, and third enemy possessions, taking 
thousands of prisoners. In some cases the advance 
was five or six miles. There was no part of the line 
all along a twenty-eight mile front that did not make 
a considerable advance. The French nation was 
thrilled with the victory of the third Marne Battle; 
the English rejoiced with their Allies. While in far- 
off America thousands of towns and cities heard the 
news that their own boys were at last fighting for 
liberty. 

The actions of the Americans in this battle con- 
vinced Foch and satisfied Pershing. Generals Gou- 
raud, Mangin, and Degoutte gave them the highest 
praise, comparing them to the oldest and best of their 
own French regiments. The first and second divisions 
were at Soissons, where they swept forward with the 
utmost zeal and the greatest disregard of danger. 
One of these divisions did not arrive on the field until 



246 HISTORY OF Till-: WORLD WAR. 

the night before the battle began, and it had no time 
for sleep. These two divisions fought continuously 
for five days before they were relieved, when they 
gave place, tired, but happy, to other men. 

In the Chateau-Thierry sector, the other three divi- 
sions were fighting as well and as successfully. They 
helped to drive the Germans back across the Marne, 
occupied Chateau-Thierry itself, and fought their way 
forward everywhere. They distinguished themselves 
by their daring ; frequently detachments went ahead 
too fast and had to be recalled. The third division 
was engaged in resisting the German offensive at the 
top of the salient, but when their own attack began 
they pushed forward after the retreating Germans, 
fighting for twelve continuous days, and were relieved 
after they had advanced to the sources of the Ourcq. 
The Twenty-sixth, or Yankee division, was north of 
Chateau-Thierry at the beginning of the offensive. 
They advanced with the rest of the line and performed 
their allotted task, taking the village of Torcy in the 
first hour, and occupying Belleau village. They met 
very severe resistance at the latter point, but pushed 
on, day after day, taking several hundred prisoners, 
and capturing one nine inch cannon. 

The Fourth division of regular army troops, the 
Thirty-second division, made up of National Guards- 
men from Michigan and Wisconsin, and the famous 
Rainbow division, all appeared at the Battle of the 
Marne after a few days, relieving other American 
divisions. These were relieved in turn as other divi- 
sions appeared later. The Fourth division was re- 
lieved by the Seventy-seventh. These New- York City 
men were the first draft troops to fight. They had 
hurried overseas to help check the victorious Germans, 
but were pursuing a defeated army instead. Alto- 
gether nearly three hundred thousand Americans 
fought in the last Battle of the Marne — from which 
it can be seen that American troops were indispen- 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 247 

sable; that the great offensive would not have been 
possible without them. 

Meanwhile the general situation was favorable to 
the Allies. On the 19th, the second day of the battle, 
the French and Americans continued their advance, 
with the hope of closing the mouth of the salient. 
But too many German divisions were at hand, and 
by the close of the second day their presence was felt 
in the stiffened German resistance. It was then that 
the real struggle began, the Allies fighting to push 
on, the Germans resisting with all their strength lest 
their huge force be captured. For them, the latter 
danger was over by the 20th, on which day they with- 
drew their troops from south of the Marne. But it 
was still necessary to retreat farther; the Allies had 
won positions that dominated Soissons, and would not 
neglect any chance to make a new penetration. 

When the Allies were visibly checked at Soissons, 
Foch ordered attacks on the opposite side of the salient, 
and there the French and British assailed the Germans, 
while the Americans in the south were pressing hard 
upon the retreating foe. They fought through every 
street and from house to house in Chateau-Thierry, 
followed them over every hill and flanked every forest 
position, cleaning up every machine-gun nest as they 
went. 

The three days following July 20th were days of 
hard fighting, of desperate counter attacks by the Ger- 
mans, of slow advance by the Allies. On the 24th 
the French and Americans advanced two miles north 
of Chateau-Thierry. By the 25th the Allies had taken 
more than twenty-five thousand prisoners, and had re- 
duced the width of the salient at the base from thirty 
to twenty miles. 

The Germans had now entirely abandoned the line 
of the Marne River; the famed stream was for the 
last time cleared of enemy troops. They withdrew 
northward, fighting rear-guard actions and leaving 



248 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

hidden machine guns to delay the pursuing Americans. 
On the 27th there was a three-mile advance, and on 
the 28th the Americans captured Fere-en-Tardenois. 
Some miles north of the Marne a small stream, the 
Ourcq, divided the salient midway between the Aisne 
and the Marne, and the Germans attempted to hold 
this line for a time. But the Allies were ascending the 
stream from the west and approaching broadside from 
the south, and so constant was the pressure that the 
Germans abandoned the Ourcq on July 29th. 

Two new American divisions now relieved their tired 
comrades and took up the work of keeping the enemy 
on the retreat. Among these new troops was a regi- 
ment or so from Wisconsin, composed in part of Ger- 
man-Americans. No soldier fought better than these 
men, who for the next week fought day and night; 
first in advancing to the town of Fismes, and then in 
capturing it. On August 2d the French entered 
Soissons, making an advance of three to five miles. 
The Germans now gave up all hope of defense in the 
salient itself, and the next few days saw them re- 
treating from the territory south of the Vesle, a small 
stream that flows into the Aisne from the south. The 
beginning of the fifth year of the Great War was cele- 
brated by the French and Americans, who drove their 
enemies across the river and gained full possession of 
Fismes. 

This practically ended the first phase of the battle. 
The French and Americans, with some help from 
British troops, had achieved a brilliant success over 
several German armies at a moment when the latter 
were in full force, and were making an offensive of 
their own. They had captured thirty-five thousand 
prisoners, taken seven hundred and fifty guns and 
several thousand machine guns. The supplies cap- 
tured were vast, and those destroyed by the Germans 
during their retreat were even greater in quantity. 
The French commanders had outgeneraled the Ger- 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 249 

mans and compelled them to relinquish their most 
dangerous gains, had driven the enemy twenty-five 
miles farther from Paris. 

The German high command was astounded by the 
Allied success coming as it did where their own armies 
were in the greatest strength. They anticipated 
further attacks in the same region, and made the 
greatest efforts to prepare for defense. If they could 
inflict a defeat even now, if Foch's armies should try 
to advance farther and fail, it would balance their 
own defeat. But Foch had no intention of attacking 
the new line in force for the present. He turned his 
energies elsewhere. 

The Picardy salient was unlike the one on the 
Marne in that it was immensely larger, and instead of 
forming an acute triangle, as in the case of the one 
Foch had just destroyed, it was obtuse, had a west 
side and a south side, instead of east and west sides. 
Its base was too broad to be attacked in the manner 
of the Marne salient. The Germans felt safe in this 
salient. They were only pausing on the lines they 
occupied, preparatory to a further advance, and did 
not fortify themselves for defense. Their confidence 
was largely based upon the supposed condition of the 
British armies. 

The British armies had undergone a long period of 
reorganization since their great disaster in March, 
even while they were fighting desperately in Flanders 
and Picardy. Hundreds of thousands of reinforce- 
ments were received and fitted into existing corps; 
all fheir losses of guns and supplies were made up. 
The several armies were still under the same com- 
manders — namely, Generals Plumer, Home, Rawlin- 
son, and Byng— all subordinate to Field Marshall Haig, 
and to the supreme commander, Foch. Only General 
Gough, whose army had broken, no longer commanded 
a force. 

By the ist of August the British armies were 



250 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

ready to renew the offensive. For some weeks they 
had been feeling out the German line, getting infor- 
mation. Foch gave the word that started the British 
toward the Hindenburg line. At early dawn, on Au- 
gust 8th, the British fourth army, commanded by Gen- 
eral Rawlinson, attacked the western side of the Picardy 
salient along a front of twenty-five miles from Albert 
southward. Adjoining the British, the first French 
army of General Debeney also attacked, their line 
swinging around the curve of the salient to Montdi- 
dier. The advance was not heralded by a period of 
bombardment. Only a rolling barrage fire, began at 
the moment of attack, protected the assailants, while 
a host of tanks led the way into the German lines. 

The assault was instantly successful, the Allies — 
Australians, English, French — sweeping forward for 
miles over German trenches and after the fleeing Ger- 
mans. Nowhere along the forty-mile line of attack 
was there even a semblance of failure. In the case 
of the British their losses were less than the number 
of prisoners they captured. By the end of the second 
day their advance was carried still farther. They 
were nearly fifteen miles beyond their starting place 
at the deepest point. Amiens was now many miles 
away from the German line, and the distance was 
increasing every hour. On August ioth the French 
captured Montdidier, held by the Germans since the 
last days of March. They made a six-mile advance 
along a front of thirteen miles, creating a long line 
of disturbance for the German command to deal with. 
By the end of the third day nearly forty thousand 
Germans, or the equivalent of three divisions, had 
been captured. 

The attack was not checked immediately, as previ- 
ous British attacks had been. The British were eager 
to recover the ground they had lost in March, and 
they pressed toward the old Somme battlefield as their 
immediate goal. Their aviators bombed the bridges 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 251 

over the Somme, hindering the Germans in their re- 
treat. Every day saw a new British advance, while 
the French were increasing their momentum. An 
American division was with the British, and on Aug- 
ust 12th this division, together with their friends of 
the English army, reached the town of Bray, the loss 
of which had been so serious in March. 

The Germans now stood upon a line reaching from 
Albert through Chaulnes, Roye, and Lassigny to the 
west of Noyon. Here they attempted to hold the 
attack. They had lost nearly all the territory west 
of the original Somme line of 19 16. For some few 
days there was no general advance, only hard fighting, 
in which local thrusts were made by all the Allies. 
The Germans were in danger of being outflanked 
from a wide line, should the Allies penetrate farther. 

Meanwhile the Germans were becoming aware of 
Foch's strategy, and painfully aware of his resources 
in men, and guns, and tanks. They decided to with- 
draw their armies to the Hindenburg line in the hope 
of maintaining the same successful defense they had 
held for nearly four years. By August 15th they 
began to withdraw from the Lys salient that cut in 
behind Ypres, and the British could not interfere 
greatly, being occupied in Picardy. On the 18th 
Haig's men took the important town of Merville, and 
territory equal to a fifth of the salient. 

Foch kept his chief energies for the moment for 
the Picardy battle. As soon as the British advance 
showed signs of being held up, he promptly made an 
attack in a new place on the wide circle, sending Gen- 
eral Mangin's army against the Germans on the far 
corner above Noyon. Here, advancing up the Oise 
River, he cut into the German defense. On August 
30th Mangin advanced nearly three miles beyond the 
Oise, taking eight thousand prisoners, and putting his 
army well on the flank of the German position at 
Noygn. The following day he made an even greater 



252 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

advance, recovering twenty villages, each of which 
was strongly defended. 

The German reserves having been diverted* from the 
original place of attack, Foch started the British for- 
ward again. On the 21st they made an advance along 
the Ancre, coming into their old battle ground of 
19 1 6 and 19 17. The following day the British made 
a great attack on Albert. Beginning at five a. m. an 
assaulting column, supported by tanks, swept over the 
German defenses. Their advance was now irresist- 
ible. On the 23d, both Byng's and Rawlinson's armies 
went forward in a general advance of several miles, 
closing in on Bapaume. The Germans were now 
pushed back from their 19 16 line, except in the south, 
where they still clung to some of their gains. But 
they were not to remain on the Somme for months, 
as before. On the 24th the British took Thiepval 
Ridge in a few hours. This was the fatal height 
that in 19 16 held up their advance for three months. 

On August 25th the British began a new attack, 
which will be taken up in the following chapter; 
they assailed and penetrated the Hindenburg line. 
Meanwhile they continued to push the Germans back 
from their March and April gains, sweeping forward 
on a thirty-mile front. The Germans now had no 
other aim than to place their armies safely behind the 
defenses of the Hindenburg line. It was now a ques- 
tion of saving their armies. They were compelled 
to fight constantly, losing men by thousands. The 
Allied attacks were pressed so fiercely that they could 
not remove the huge stores of munitions they had 
collected for a further offensive, but had to destroy 
or abandon them. 

By August 28th both British and French were 
advancing in an unbroken line from Arras to Soissons. 
On the 29th the French took Noyon, and the British 
took Bapaume. The same day the British retook 
Delville Wood, a few miles from Bapaume. In the 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 253 

first Battle of the Somme six months intervened be- 
tween the taking of these two places. On this same 
day another considerable success was gained, this 
time by the Americans, who took the strategic town 
of Juvigny, north of Soissons. It was the Thirty- 
second division attached to Mangin's army that per- 
formed this feat. The capture was preceded by five 
days of the severest fighting, during which four Ger- 
man divisions successively attempted to hold back the 
one American division. The Germans were under 
the strictest orders to hold the town, which commanded 
the rear of the German line, but the men from Michi- 
gan and Wisconsin went ahead to their objective. 
Two thousand prisoners were taken. This success 
opened the way to further gains, which were quickly 
made by Mangin's army, and resulted a few days later 
in the Germans leaving the line of the Vesle, and all 
ground south of the Aisne. 

The Germans were practically out of the Lys salient 
by the end of August, and were back in their old line 
in most places. On the 31st they evacuated Mont 
Kemmel, the possession of which in April fore- 
shadowed a British disaster, barely averted. In the 
next few days the British recovered all their losses in 
the Ypres region. The recovery of the German gains 
of March, and the latter's retreat to the Hindenburg 
line, were now in the final stages. On August 30th 
the British took Combles, and on the following day 
the Australians stormed Mont St. Ouentin, which 
gave them the town of Peronne a day later. In spite 
of the strength of the German position, the Australians 
took prisoners to the number of ten times their own 
losses. 

And now a new British success east of Arras, where 
they were behind the Hindenburg line, caused that 
part of the German army that was still outside the 
line to retreat in the utmost haste. On September 
6th the entire line from Rheims to Cambrai, a dis- 



/ ^ 



254 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

tance of ninety miles, was in motion. The Allies. still 
followed closely, lighting whenever opportunity offered. 
Their advance on this day was about eight miles, 
which redeemed hundreds of square miles of French 
territory in a few hours. 

From the 8th to the 15th of September the British, 
French, and Americans were engaged in recovering 
the remnants of the territory in front of the old 
German line. The great German success had been 
wiped out in disaster. The German war lords were 
back in the line from which they set out on March 
2 1 st, but they were much worse off than when they 
started. The Allies had captured nearly two hundred 
thousand prisoners since July 1st, while the casualties 
of the Germans had mounted beyond the million mark. 
In two months they had suffered one of the most 
amazing military reverses of history. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE REDEMPTION OF FRANCE. 

The German line, in the middle of September, 1918, 
was in general the line upon which the German armies 
had stood for nearly four years. Near the North Sea 
it was exactly the same; around Ypres they still re- 
tained some of their 1918 gains; in the neighborhood 
of Arras they had lost territory; while from that place 
southeast to Rheims they occupied the Hindenburg 
line ; and from Rheims to Switzerland they were on the 
same ground they had held since October, 1914. Only 
at the St. Mihiel salient had they lost territory. 

It was the German hope and plan to hold this line 
for the next two or three months, or until winter 
should bring an end to campaigning. In view of- 
their successful defense lasting several years this did 
not seem to be an extravagant hope. If Ludendorff 
could parry Foch's thrusts, the German statesmen 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 255 

would have an apparently sound basis for a negotiated 
peace on the ground that the deadlock still existed and 
might continue for years. The "German army had 
suffered heavily, but hardly worse so than the armies 
of the Allies. It was still well supplied with guns 
and shells, was still numerically able to man the line 
strongly, and yet have reserves. 

The problem of Foch was to prevent the Germans 
from bringing their retreat to a halt and thus achiev- 
ing a victory, even though it would be an entirely 
negative one. What he wanted to do was to break 
the new German line and push their armies back to 
the frontier, and thus demonstrate that no German 
line whatever could be held against the united strength 
of the Allies when directed by a single commander. 

The plan of Foch was already apparent ; it had been 
exemplified in his drives against the German salients. 
His intention was to operate the entire Allied army — 
French, British, American — as one force, to make no 
move that did not have a bearing on the campaign as 
a whole. His method was to strike many blows at 
widely separated points, but always against a weak 
spot in the enemy line, or else against a vital point. 
This was the opposite of the German method, which 
was to make one huge attack that took months to pre- 
pare; after it was delivered weeks were required to 
set the war machine on its wheels again, during which 
interval the enemy had time to recover. 

The plan that promised the greatest results was to 
break through the Hindenburg line; to do this and 
advance to the Belgian frontier was to throw the 
Germans out of France, since success there would 
destroy their communications. The same end could 
be attained by sending the American army at Verdun 
northward, but Foch decided to make his main thrust 
against the strongest part of the German line, and to 
make it with the British army. The other armies, 
both French and American, would be used, but their 



256 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

attacks would be for the purpose of keeping German 
reserves from the vicinity of the British attack. It 
was hardly reckoned as possible that the American 
army would actually succeed in its attack as the Brit- 
ish did in theirs. 

The new campaign that was to end in complete 
victory began on the 18th of September, when the 
British made a frontal attack on the Hindenburg line. 
Previous to that date, however, Byng's army had 
penetrated the famous defenses east of Arras on a 
limited front. On August 25th the British took ad- 
vantage of the general confusion of the Germans 
during their great retreat, and by making a sudden 
attack they broke through the permanent defenses. 
The succeeding days saw them enlarging their gains, 
while on the first three days of September they made 
a still greater attack, going entirely beyond the Hin- 
denburg line into territory that had seen no British 
soldier — save captives — since August, 19 14. Here 
they encountered a second line called the Droecourt- 
Oueant line, and they broke into this also, on a front 
of twenty miles, with a six-mile penetration at the 
deepest point. Ten thousand Germans were taken in 
this attack. This success put the British far behind 
the German lines, and was so dangerous to the latter 
that they collected enough reserves to hold the British 
in check. 

By the 18th of September, however, Foch was 
ready to begin his main attack with all the armies in 
cooperation. From that date to about September 
26th, Rawlinson's fourth army and the French army 
of Debeney attacked the defenses of St. Quentin. 
Each day saw them gain new positions, towns, or 
hills, or other strong places. This brought them to 
within three or four miles of the city. On September 
27th General Byng's army assailed the Cambrai front 
in an advance twenty miles wide. Between that date 
and September 30th every hour saw fighting of the 






HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 257 

most terrific character. British tanks and British 
cannon were used with terrible effect against the Ger- 
mans, and British soldiers fought with the assurance 
that no position was impregnable. Two American 
divisions, the Twenty-seventh and Thirtieth, one com- 
posed of New York State National Guardsmen, the 
other of Southern mountaineers — "the Wildcat divi- 
sion" — fought with the British troops against the Ger- 
mans at Cambrai and St. Quentin. 

On the last day of September the Allies were at 
the outskirts of both cities. The fight for St. Quen- 
tin was especially severe. The Scheltd Canal with 
high banks formed a part of the Hindenburg line 
defenses. With machine guns commanding every 
yard of approach, the Germans fully expected to hold 
the canal against any odds, since it made a natural 
barrier against tanks. But Australians and Ameri- 
cans under cover of the British barrage fire took the 
canal and built bridges for the tanks. The French 
of Debeney's army were fighting equally well, and on 
October first they entered St. Quentin, from which 
the Germans had taken all of the fifty thousand French 
inhabitants. 

While the British were smashing the outer defenses 
of the Germans at Cambrai, Foch had set the other 
armies in motion. Mangin's army, containing one 
American division, was fighting forward north of 
Soissons. They were at the edge of the German 
stronghold of the St. Gobain Forest, where their ad- 
vance was made literally foot by foot. This was in 
reality one of the strongest points in the whole Ger- 
man line, and Foch did not care to sacrifice too many 
men in an attempt to carry it by quick assault. The 
resistance was of the strongest; any strategic point 
gained meant German counter attacks. By the end 
of September they had reached the famous Chemin. 
des Dames position at its western end, although the 
Germans still held it throughout its greater length. 



258 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

On September 26th Foch set the newly formed 
first American army in motion, far to the southeast 
of the crucible of Cambrai and St. Quentin. Gou- 
raud's fourth French army fought in cooperation with 
Pershing's men. An account of this important battle 
will be found in the succeeding chapter. 

At the same time another attack was begun on the 
extreme northern end of the battle front, where the 
Belgian army, which had been upon a quiet defensive 
since the first Battle of Ypres, now began an attack. 
With the Belgians was General Plumer's second Brit- 
ish army. On the first day they made gains on a ten 
mile front between Dixmude and Ypres, capturing 
four thousand prisoners. On the second day the Bel- 
gians took Dixmude itself, which they had lost during 
the gigantic German attack in November, 19 14. 
Their advance took them within two miles of Roulers, 
an important center which the British had long 
coveted. On September 30th the third day of the 
Flanders battle, the British recaptured for the last 
time the much fought for Messines-Passchendaele 
Ridge and advanced almost to the railroad junction at 
Menin. The liberation of Belgium was beginning. 

On October 2d a French army -commanded by 
General Degoutte appeared in the Flanders section, 
while the reorganized British fifth army — commanded 
by General Gough in the almost fatal Picardy attack 
in March, but now led by General Birdwood of Anzac 
fame — was also put into action on the same front. 
With the French were two American divisions, the 
Thirty-seventh, or Buckeye division, and the Ninety- 
first, or Wild West division. The men from Ohio 
and from the Pacific coast had been hastily withdrawn 
from the Argonne front, and sent to Belgium to aid 
this attack. The line of action was now extended 
southward, and a movement against the city of Lille 
was begun. The first few days were spent in gaining 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 259 

the approaches to the city, after which the fighting 
died down for ten days. 

These two widely separated attacks, coming at the 
same moment, demanded instant attention from the 
German high command. General Pershing's advance 
would cut this main line of communication if it were 
not checked; while the Belgian and British attack, if 
successful, would compel them to leave the Belgian 
coast. It was the last despairing crisis of the German 
commanders ; they must stop these two forward move- 
ments or their cause was lost beyond repair. Re- 
enforcements were rushed to both battle areas, and 
for a time succeeded in slowing up the Allied advance. 

And now Foch's moment was come. By his 
masterly strategy he had driven back the enemy first 
at one point, then at another, had deprived him of 
all liberty of action, had compelled him to fight ac- 
cording to the best Allied interests. And now he had 
succeeded in the culmination of his strategy, that of 
compelling the enemy to weaken that point which 
Foch expected to attack. Hitherto the opposite had 
always happened; the place and time of attack were 
so heralded that the enemy could leisurely make his 
arrangements to meet it. 

Foch now called upon the British armies of Byng 
and Rawlinson to break asunder the last remnants of 
the Hindenburg line. The defenses were still formi- 
dable, and the lines were amply defended. The Ger- 
mans had called upon the collective ingenuity of their 
armies to render their position impregnable. Canals, 
rivers, hidden batteries, mines, dugouts, a concentration 
of thousands o'f guns, the protection afforded by 
buildings — all entered into the defensive properties 
of their strongest position. 

The British armies — English, Irish, Scotch, Cana- 
dian and Australian — responded, eager to complete 
the great task assigned them. They had not for a 
day ceased to attack the German lines along their 



200 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

front. Every half day saw a battle ; any one of which, 
in size of territory, in numbers involved, and in casual- 
ties, equaled almost any battle in the, history of wars. 
The Scheldt Canal, which was the chief defense of 
St. Quentin, was the mainstay of the Hindenburg 
line throughout its length, and it had to be crossed 
everywhere. The British swam across, or ferried 
themselves over on rafts, always under fire. The 
banks of the canal were one hundred feet high in 
places, a more easily defended position could not be 
desired. At the town of Bellicourt, where the canal 
passes under a ridge through a tunnel several miles 
long, the Thirtieth American division, still attached to 
the British, assaulted and carried the ditch, almost 
a canon in dimensions, receiving the enthusiastic 
praise of their own and the British commanders. 

By the end of the first week in October the British 
had penetrated all but the last lines of the immensely 
broad belt of fortifications comprising the Hindenburg 
line. And on October 8th the full strength of Byng's 
and Rawlinson's armies was thrown against the Ger- 
man positions. In fighting not surpassed in any 
battle they penetrated the last prepared defenses of 
their enemies, and despite the utmost efforts of thirty 
German divisions, they won their way through. By 
the 9th they had fought their way into and beyond 
the city of Cambrai, had advanced nine miles through- 
out a width of twenty miles, and on October 10th 
the Hindenburg line was but a memory, all its strong 
places broken, its fortifications crumbled, and its de- 
fenders scattered. 

A German army was in full and rapid retreat that 
was little short of rout. The shaken armies choked 
the roads, abandoning nearly all their supplies that 
had not been previously withdrawn. British and 
French planes harried their march with bombs, and 
British cavalry scoured the country for stragglers. 
It was the finest achievement of the British army in 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 26l 

centuries, surpassing tenfold any other English battle, 
in point of numbers involved, while it will rank with 
Crecy, Agincourt, Blenheim, and Waterloo as an im- 
mortal page in British history. 

To the German high command the destruction of 
the Hindenburg line was a warning that the end was 
near. What three weeks before had seemed certain — 
namely, the holding of their position until winter — • 
was now not only impossible, but the very line was 
disrupted and the armies necessary to defense were 
badly beaten and disheartened. There was still an- 
other line to fall back upon, the line of the Meuse 
River, which runs through Verdun and along the 
French frontier to Belgium, thence through the north- 
eastern part of that country. The Germans had long 
ago prepared that line as an eventuality, and they 
now were compelled to resort to it. But while the 
holding of the Hindenburg line would have had a 
measure of triumph, the retirement to the Meuse was 
tantamount to a confession of defeat. 

The French armies of Mangin and Gouraud, which 
had been attacking the center of the German line along 
the Aisne, gained increasing momentum during the 
first days of October. The German position here 
formed a great curved line as it came south from 
Belgium through St. Quentin and turned almost east 
near Soissons and Rheims. The city of Laon, the 
forest of St. Gobain, at the apex of the curved line, 
constituted the keystone of the German position in 
France. It was against this arch that half of the 
strength of French armies had been exerted during 
all the years of the war. Each year had seen a new 
and greater effort to break through at this point, but 
the progress had been measured by scant miles. 
Neville and Petain, in 191 7, had pushed it forward 
to the Chemin des Dames, only to see all their gains 
swept away in May, 19 18. Now, in September and 
October, the French were slowly recovering the lost 



262 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

ground and beginning to encroach on new territory. 
On the last day of September, General Mangin had 
just reached a point from which he commanded the 
western end of the Chemin des Dames, and was en- 
croaching on the great St. Gobain Forest. On the 
right of Mangin, General Berthelot's army worked 
its way round to the other end of the line north of 
Rheims. With General Berthelot was an attachment 
of several thousand Italians. These forces met with 
severe resistance, but pressed on in their skillful ad- 
vance. By the 5th the Germans were being out- 
flanked from both sides and began to withdraw. 
This retreat was hastened by the fall of Cambrai and 
the breaking of the Hindenburg line, since the British 
advance threatened to cut off the Germans in the La on 
salient. 

Mangin's advance was rapid now, and by October 
1 2th he had pushed forward several miles. The fol- 
lowing day the entire German line crumpled, and the 
three objectives, that hundreds of thousands of 
Frenchmen had vainly died to gain, fell into Mangin's 
hands. These were Laon, La Fere, and the St. Gobain 
Forest. The French armies in this sector now made 
a steady advance after the retreating Germans, who 
fought only rear-guard actions for a time. 

On the east of Rheims, during the same period, 
General Gouraud's fourth army was undergoing the 
same difficult but increasingly rapid advance. In all 
his fighting he kept pace with General Pershing's army 
in the Argonne Forest. The latter had the harder 
task, and, as a whole, their section of the battle front 
was not greatly affected by the British success in the 
north. It was upon their own unaided efforts that suc- 
cess depended. But Gouraud and Pershing fought 
ever forward, day after day. It was not until the 
10th of October that Gouraud's advance was at all 
rapid. The Second division of Americans was fight- 
ing with him; the Marines still constituting a part of 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 263 

it. About the 7th this division took by assault a very- 
strong German position, Blanc Mont Ridge, causing 
an immediate German retreat of three miles. Oc- 
tober 9th the Second division was relieved by the 
Thirty-sixth division. Gouraud's army after that date 
advanced steadily, keeping in touch with Berthelot on 
the west and Pershing on the east. Every day saw 
French towns delivered from their long bondage, a 
sad deliverance often, as the French found only ruins 
where prosperous towns and villages had once been. 

It was the far north end of the battle line that held 
most of the world's interest during the middle of 
October. The advance of the Belgians, English, and 
French in Flanders brought more visible results to 
the waiting public. The first advance from Septem- 
ber 28th on had made a small salient between Lille 
and the sea, that instantly aroused the Germans to 
the necessity of evacuating the Belgian coast. A 
farther advance by the Allies would cut them off from 
their submarine bases and entail the loss of their vast 
material. Their departure was hastened, and all mov- 
able supplies were carried away. 

On October 14th the Allies resumed their attacks 
in this region, in a general advance between Lille and 
the sea. So rapidly did they sweep forward that 
every German position was overrun all along the line. 
The evacuation of Lille had been begun many days 
before, and under the new advances the Germans 
quickly departed. Lille was entered by General Bird- 
wood's army on October 17th. This unfortunate 
French city had heard the Allies-' guns during all the 
weary months, and the people always hoped for the 
advance that month after month never came. They 
heard the roar of the great battles of Ypres, of Loos, 
of Arras, of Vimy Ridge, of Messines, and each new 
battle promised to deliver them from the German yoke. 
The saddest days were those that heard the battles 
receding, as their champions retreated before the Ger- 



264 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

man onslaught. But now the invader had gone, for- 
ever, be it hoped. Joy, tempered with deepest sadness, 
was in every countenance as the British entered. But 
it was the French that Lille longed to see, and when 
a few French officers arrived their fellow country- 
men went wild with delight. 

The same day that witnessed the deliverance of 
Lille also saw the evacuation of Ostend and a part of 
the Belgian coast. A British naval force entered the 
same day. The following day the rest of the coast 
line, including Zeebrugge, the great submarine base, 
was cleared of the enemy, and on the 19th the battle 
line ended, not on the North Sea, but on the Dutch 
frontier. The Belgians were near Ghent in another 
day or so. 

This great success in Belgium was perhaps the first 
intimation the non-military public, especially in the 
United States, had that the end of the war was at 
hand. The evacuation of the Belgian coast was so 
great a triumph, so deadly a blow at German power, 
that its value was seen by all. The ten days ending 
October 18th had seen the most amazing Allied vic- 
tories of the whole war. Cambrai, Lens, Lille had 
been captured, Rheims and Verdun delivered from 
bombardment, the Hindenburg line shattered, and the 
Belgian coast cleared of the enemy. 

The whole Allied line from the Dutch frontier to 
Verdun was now in motion; nowhere were the Ger- 
mans able to stop, and their chief aim was to place 
themselves behind the Meuse. On October 17th the 
town of Douai was taken by the British. This was a 
very remote objective in the 1916 Battle of the 
Somme; but now it had only a passing value. From 
this date onward, the British armies were marching 
toward Valenciennes and the Belgian border ; the Bel- 
gians were fighting forward to Brussels; the French 
armies in the center, and Pershing's army at the right, 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 265 

were headed for the French frontier and the com- 
munications of the German army. 

What had for years been the great dream of Ger- 
many — to hold northern France with its industries, 
its coal and iron fields — was a dream of the past. 
The utmost efforts of the German commanders were 
now expended in extricating their armies from the 
land to gain which they had wasted millions of lives. 
The redemption of France was being rapidly accom- 
plished. 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

AMERICAN FIGHTING MEN. 

The American army made all the difference between 
victory and, if not defeat, at least deadlock. The 
tremendous victory of 19 18 and the triumphant end 
of the war would not have been possible without the 
soldiers of the United States. The war would have 
been continued into 19 19, and the result would most 
likely have been decided by the attrition of one of the 
opposing nations rather than by a victory in the field. 

The American army went to Europe with a great 
inheritance of military history, and by the achieve- 
ments of their ancestors they would be measured. 
The grandsons of Lee's army fought beside the 
grandsons of Grant's men. The fifth generation 
from Revolutionary days was called upon to fight 
against a tyranny a hundred times more oppressive 
than that against which the men of 1776 had re- 
belled. The American army of 19 18 went to battle 
inspired by the memories of Bunker Hill and York- 
town, of New Orleans, of Shiloh, Chancellorville, 
Gettysburg, and the Wilderness. 

Even more inspiring was the knowledge that they 
were crusaders, with a mission to free France and 
Belgium from the grip of the Hun. It was knightly 
enthusiasm for the righting of the others' wrongs. 



266 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

They sailed across the Atlantic eager to join the fray, 
but it was not until they had seen the handiwork of 
the ruthless Germans that the battle fever possessed 
them. The sight of burned villages, of magnificent 
cathedrals wantonly destroyed, of the uprooting of 
fruit farms, the defilement of French homes, and 
above all the stories of the wrongs done to women 
and children, fired them with the same rage that had 
filled the French, Belgians, and British soldiers in 
the early days of the war, a rage that gave way to a 
cold ferocity. There were no advocates of a nego- 
tiated peace in the American Expeditionary Force. 

There were those who feared that a fighting Ameri- 
can army, such as Grant or Lee commanded, was no 
longer possible. They thought the great influx of 
immigrants, that had put the Anglo-Saxon stock al- 
most in a minority, was calculated to deprive America 
of a common aim, of common ideals, and therefore of 
a common fighting spirit. But their fears were not 
realized. The men from the tenement districts of 
New York — Jews, Poles, Greeks — fought equally well 
with the Kansans, who had generations of American 
ancestry ; the Scandinavians of the Northwest were not 
excelled by the Wildcat division, whose forefathers 
were English two hundred years ago; the boys with 
German names from Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Cin- 
cinnati fought as bravely as the most purely Ameri- 
can troops from Vermont or Texas. 

In 19 14 the French soldiers were compelled to rush 
from their homes directly into battle, while British 
troops were not always given full training, so great 
was the need in the early days of the war. But 
months elapsed between the landing of the United 
States troops and their entry into battle. More than 
nine months passed before the first selective service 
men were sent into a fight. This period was spent 
in fitting the men for their ordeal. The subsequent 
actions proved how thorough the preparation had been. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 267 

The first action of importance in which American 
troops were engaged was at Seicheprey, a village lo- 
cated on the southern side of the St. Mihiel salient. 
It was near this town that Joan of Arc was born. 
On April 20, 19 18, the Germans concentrated a force 
that gave them an eight-to-one advantage, and laying 
down a heavy barrage fire, they rushed the positions 
of some New England troops. The Germans pene- 
trated more than a mile into the American line, taking 
one hundred and eighty-three prisoners. The Ameri- 
cans fought well, counter attacked at once, and re- 
covered all of the lost ground and rescued some of 
their men. The Germans left three hundred dead 
upon the field. 

When the German offensive of March and April 
threatened to disrupt the Allied line every trained 
American division was called to the front. The First 
division was placed in reserve near Montdidier, and 
later was moved into battle trenches. There, on May 
28th, the American soldiers carried out their first 
offensive action. With the German positions in the 
town of Cantigny as their objective, the First division 
men attacked after a bombardment, in which heavy 
guns, trench mortars, gas and flame projectors were 
used. A smoke barrage protected the men from the 
enemy fire, and tanks cleared the way. The action was 
brief and highly successful. The Americans took all 
their objectives in a rush, and captured about two hun- 
dred prisoners. It was a small action in a big war, in- 
volving only a mile and a quarter of the front, but 
the officers of the First division put all their thought 
into the preparation, and the men all their dash into 
the carrying out of their plans. It was a first proof 
of American fighting spirit. 

It was not until the Germans won their victory of 
May 27th and created the Marne salient that Ameri- 
can troops were sent into critical battles. The part 
they played in checking the German advance through 



268 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

Chateau-Thierry has already been recounted. The 
first American unit to arrive at the point of action 
was the motorized machine gun battalion of the third 
division. The men and guns kept the bridge across 
the Marne through an extremely vital day, holding 
the Germans until reinforcements came. The bravery 
and dash of the Marines at Belleau Wood so impressed 
the French that they rechristened the wood after the 
American Marine Corps. The fighting here was of 
the closest character, calling for personal bravery. 
The Marines fought without the slightest regard for 
their losses, and dug individual bomb proofs and pits. 
More than half their number were listed as casualties 
before the wood was taken. Their commander, 
Colonel Catlin, was wounded, but recovered. 

Every trained division took part in the first great 
offensive of the Allies, that of July 18th. The part 
each division played has been outlined in brief in a 
preceding chapter. The first day's attack began in 
a thunderstorm, when the artillery of the heavens 
mingled with that of the French and Americans. In 
the days that followed the men fought through 
forests, over harvest fields, where the Germans had 
reaped the grain sowed by French farmers, and through 
villages where every house was a machine-gun nest. 
The Americans quickly learned the deadly nature of 
machine guns, and many were the devices whereby they 
circumvented them. Tanks were not always available 
to overcome them, and, if nothing else served, the 
Americans rushed the machine guns. It was always 
the pick of the German army that was left behind with 
machine guns to guard the retreat, and the Germans 
usually fought to the death. 

American ingenuity was shown in the motorized 
machine-gun battalions, popularly called the "Ford 
Cavalry." There was never any delay in bringing 
up the guns. Later field guns were mounted on a 
tank-like carriage that was independent of roads and 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 269 

could cross any kind of country. This was of im- 
mense value in the rough territory in which the Ameri- 
cans fought in the later actions. 

The Americans who fought with the British and 
French armies won the heartiest praise from officers, 
and the kindliest fellowship from the men of the Allied 
armies. The Thirty-second division, with Mangin's 
army, in August and September earned the sobriquet 
of "Les Terribles/' from their feat in capturing 
Juvigny from four German divisions. 

The American army was largely dependent upon 
the French for big guns, aeroplanes, and tanks. This 
dependency was being rapidly removed as the war 
closed, and would have been entirely so in 19 19. The 
first American air action, made by American aviators 
in American-made planes, was on August 7th, when 
eighteen planes raided the German lines, all return- 
ing in safety. About nineteen hundred American 
planes were sent to France, while two thousand two 
hundred and seventy-six planes were used. British 
squadrons also aided the Americans. 

The American air service lost some of its noted 
fighters in 19 18. Major Raoul Luf berry and Cap- 
tain James Norman Hall were killed. Both of these 
officers had been members of the Lafayette Esca- 
drille. Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt was killed on 
July 14th, his plane falling within the Marne salient. 

After Foch's first counter offensive, Pershing with- 
drew most of the divisions that were serving under 
French and British commanders, and on August 10th 
organized the first American army, under his personal 
command. On August 30th the American army took 
charge of its first considerable section of the battle 
line, comprising about fifty miles. This sector in- 
cluded the whole of the St. Mihiel salient, southeast 
of Verdun. 

This salient was now of four years' standing. It 
had always been a menace to Verdun and, what was 



270 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

of more consequence now, its possession by the Ger- 
mans made unsafe the future operations planned by 
the American army northward through the Argonne 
Forest. The reduction of the salient was the first step 
toward the great campaign of the United States 
troops. 

From the time the first Americans came to the Lor- 
raine sector the salient had occupied their attention, 
and it had long been agreed that their first action of 
importance should be the taking of this German wedge. 
Fate, in the shape of the German offensive, willed 
otherwise, and Chateau-Thierry will stand as the gen- 
eral name of America's first great battle on European 
soil. But after five months the Americans were ready 
to undertake their first independent offensive. 

The Battle of St. Michiel was planned as a surprise, 
and all concentrations of troops and supplies were 
made secretly; and, as it proved, the Germans actually 
were surprised, which in view of the preparation, the 
assembly of tanks and transports, the placing of hun- 
dreds of big guns, the location of special hospitals, 
and the presence of several hundred thousand men, 
was a staff operation of the first rank. The aviators 
engaged were the most numerous of any one action 
during the war. 

Three American corps, one of which had only one 
American division, the other being French, and a 
French colonial corps were stationed around the salient 
as combat troops. The American divisions in line 
were the First, Second, and Fifth, of the regular army, 
the Twenty-sixth and Forty-second of National 
Guard troops, and the Eighty-second, Eighty-ninth, 
and Ninetieth of selective service men. All but one 
of these, the Twenty-sixth, were in line along the south 
side of the salient, from which side the principal attack 
was to be made. It was the first time the draft divi- 
sion composed of men from Camp Gordon, Camp 
Funston, and Camp Travis were in action. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 2J I 

The Battle of the St. Mihiel salient began at five 
a. m. on September 12th, after a four-hour artillery 
preparation which left the Germans in no condition 
for defense. When the American divisions advanced 
they met with so little resistance that it was almost a 
disappointment to troops primed for battle. The new 
men of the draft divisions who were keyed up for 
their first battle found themselves merely marching 
forward over what had been the German defenses. 
The tanks were ahead driving the enemy before them, 
while intrepid Americans were everywhere cutting the 
barbed w r ire that the tanks had failed to break down. 
By seven a. m. the Americans from the south were 
five miles inside the German lines, and were closing 
the mouth of the salient. Prisoners by the thousands 
were taken; in one instance a German regiment was 
captured intact, and its colonel asked to be allowed to 
march it off the field. 

On the west the French and Americans were mak- 
ing slower progress owing to the nature of the ground. 
Strongly defended hills barred their path, but by eve- 
ning the hills were taken, and the troops pushed on 
through the night. By morning only a small gap 
remained, through which the German commanders 
were hurrying their troops. This gap was entirely 
closed during the second day's battle, and there re- 
mained only to hunt down the German troops left in 
the trap. When this was done, it was discovered 
that the Americans had taken sixteen thousand Ger- 
mans captive, with a loss to themselves of about seven 
thousand, including the slightly wounded. The dead 
and seriously wounded numbered scarcely a thousand. 

This brilliant action, lasting a day and a half, was 
one of the most successful of the whole war. General 
Byng's action at Cambrai in November, 191 7, might 
have compared with it, but for his unfortunate set- 
back. There was no aftermath to this battle. The 
Germans were overwhelmed and had not the power 



272 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

to win back their gains. It was the first time during 
the war that the Germans suffered a defeat without 
attempting to regain the lost ground. This alone 
marked the waning power of the enemy. The result 
of the battle is summed up in General Pershing's 
words : "The Allies found they had a formidable army 
to aid them, and the enemy learned finally that he had 
one to reckon with." 

On the same day that the Battle of St. Michiel was 
fought, more than thirteen million Americans regis- 
tered for military service. If the battle was a severe 
blow to the German army, the registration was an 
equally severe blow to German statesmen. It com- 
pelled them to realize that America was out to win the 
war at any cost, and that their cause was lost beyond 
repair. America's intention, proclaimed aloud, of 
sending four million soldiers to Europe, effectually 
smothered any remaining hope the Germans may have 
had. 

Two weeks after this battle the American army 
began its one great campaign. It broke the backbone 
of the German position in France, even more decisively 
than the British did when they broke the Hindenburg 
line. The position the Americans were now to assail 
was the most difficult to attack, the easiest to defend, 
of any part of the front. The hilly, densely wooded 
region of the Argonne Forest began west of Verdun. 
It was some twenty miles deep from north to south, 
and extended westward some miles. The new Ameri- 
can front was bounded on the east by the Meuse River, 
which flows obliquely past, and on the west by the 
farther side of the Argonne Forest, and by General 
Gouraud's French army. Some miles north was the 
main line of communication of the German armies 
in France. A highly developed railroad system and 
several parallel motor roads came out of Germany 
and ran along the northern frontier of France, feed- 
ing the armies from Verdun northward. It was along 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 273 

the Argonne Forest that the established battle line was 
nearest the vital German supply line, but so strong 
were the German defenses that the French had made 
only one serious attempt to pierce them. 

It was this very hard task that was assigned to the 
American army, and it was undertaken in the spirit 
that the most difficult operation properly belonged to 
it. Even greater preparations were made for this 
battle since this would be no one-day affair. The 
utmost secrecy was observed; although the morning 
of September 26th was the time fixed for the begin- 
ning of the campaign, it was not until after nightfall 
on September 25th that the Americans took over the 
front line trenches from the French. Everything had 
been prepared in advance. 

Three army corps, the First, Third, and Fifth, were 
assigned for the beginning of the battle. Each corps 
had three divisions as combat troops, these divisions 
being from west to east, Seventy-seventh, Twenty- 
eighth, Thirty-fifth, Ninety-first, Thirty-seventh, Sev- 
enty-ninth, Fourth, Eightieth, and Thirty-third. Only 
one of these was a regular army division, four were 
National Guard, and four were selective service divi- 
sions. For the great majority of these troops it was 
their first battle. After a brief bombardment the 
twenty-five-mile line swept forward early in the morn- 
ing of September 26th. They advanced over the bat- 
tle-scarred ground, opened gaps in barbed wire, 
swarmed into and over German trenches in overwhelm- 
ing numbers; the towns of Varennes and Montfaucon 
were taken the first day, in an advance of three to 
seven miles. The advance continued through Septem- 
ber 27th and 28th, until the troops were past the first, 
second, and third system of defenses and out into open 
country, if the term could be applied to a forest land. 
Ten thousand prisoners was one result of the first 
three days' advance. 

The army now consolidated its position, knowing 



274 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

that the Germans would throw every available division 
against it, in a desperate attempt to throw back the 
Americans, or at least to hold them to their ground. 
The worst that could happen to the German army 
would be an interrupted advance in this region. It 
was incredible to the German high command that 
"raw troops" should have pushed through the entire 
defensive area of their army in two days' time. The 
most peremptory orders were issued to hold all ground 
at any cost; officers were instructed to inspire their 
men with the knowledge that on their efforts depended 
the future of the empire. Counter attacks began after 
September 28th, and the Germans threw large masses 
of men against the Americans, deluged the low posi- 
tions with gas, but without regaining anything of 
value. The advance of the United States troops never 
entirely stopped, although for a week the gains were 
measured in yards rather than in miles. The troops 
fought continuously day and night, through days of 
cold rain, cut off from warm rations. 

The second phase of the campaign began on Oc- 
tober 4th when Pershing resumed his driving advance, 
accomplishing new gains of one to three miles. Here 
again it was necessary to pause to beat off the terrific 
counter attacks through several days following. The 
struggle had been so exhausting that about this time 
the Thirty- fifth, Ninety- first, Thirty-seventh, and Sev- 
enty-ninth divisions were withdrawn. Their places were 
taken by the First, Thirty-second, and the Third. The 
Thirty-seventh and Ninety-first divisions were sent to 
Belgium to fight under a French commander, and were 
seen no more in the Argonne. Besides the relief divi- 
sions, new men were constantly being incorporated in 
the other divisions, as casualties depleted their ranks. 

It was during this period that the memorable inci- 
dent of the "Lost Battalion" occurred. Several hun- 
dred men of the Seventy-seventh division crept for- 
ward in a night advance, but found themselves sur- 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 275 

rounded and cut off from their own lines. The Ger- 
mans fired upon them from all sides, expecting that 
a surrender would follow promptly. But the New 
Yorkers fought back and held their positions against 
all attacks. Their food gave out, in spite of efforts 
to supply them by aeroplane. Lieutenant Colonel 
Whittlesey, their leader, consigned the Germans to 
the nether regions when surrender was demanded. 
They were relieved at last by the American advance. 
On October 9th General Pershing completed the or- 
ganization of the second American army, assigning 
it a section of the front to the east of the Meuse. 
Lieutenant General Hunter Liggett now assumed com- 
mand of the combat forces of the Argonne-Meuse 
battle; while Lieutenant General Robert L. Bulland 
commanded the newly formed army; General Per- 
shing remaining commander in chief. 

The first army was now facing another system of 
defenses, the Kriemhilde line, and once more they 
were compelled to fight their way forward. In one 
place, however, they made a sudden and considerable 
gain. This was on the far western end of the battle- 
front, where, on October 9th and 10th, the Seventy- 
seventh division, aided by the Eighty-second, newly 
thrown in, cleared the remaining section of the forest 
of Argonne, winning their way into the open country 
beyond and closing in on the important town of Grand 
Pre. 

The week of October 10th to 17th saw the army 
fighting into the Kriemhilde line. The Germans now 
had five times as many divisions in this region as 
when the campaign began. Herein is the great suc- 
cess of the Americans thus far: they were drawing 
thousands of German troops from in front of the 
French and British. The armies of Byng, Rawlinson, 
Debeney, and Mangin would not have won their great 
successes so easily had not Pershing's men consumed 
.the reserves of Ludendorff. Division after division 



276 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

was thrown into the path of the Americans, only to 
be crushed and beaten. 

The Americans were amazed at the intricate de- 
fenses they saw. The trenches which the Germans 
had occupied for four years were cemented and 
roofed; the officers' dugouts were luxuriously fur- 
nished and lighted by electricity. The boys from 
Georgia, Oregon, Texas, Kansas, and the other States 
fought under the worst weather conditions; rain con- 
tinued for weeks, and guns had to be moved through 
mud. The ten days following October 18th were 
spent in breaking the last defenses of the Kriemhilde 
line. Days were occupied in an advance of a scant 
mile, in the taking or holding of a strong point. Dur- 
ing this same period, the Americans east of the Meuse 
made new gains against the Germans. During that 
week the Germans fired their last shells into Verdun, 
their target for years. On October 26th some mam- 
moth American naval guns began to bombard the Ger- 
man line of communications. These sixteen-inch guns 
were the equal of anything the Germans possessed. 
In a few more months there would have been a con- 
siderable number of them. 

On the last day of October and the first day of 
November the German line broke. Worn out by the 
American attacks, unable to throw in fresh divisions, 
the holding troops no longer strong enough to resist, 
the German line gave way. The Americans, after 
two weeks of stationary fighting, suddenly made great 
sweeps forward in the center, and after November 
2d the left wing also advanced. Five miles were 
made in the course of a single day, the Americans in 
scores of motor trucks pursuing the beaten enemy. 
The fourth French army of General Gouraud had 
fought at the American left during the whole cam- 
paign, had kept in line week by week. Now there was 
friendly rivalry between the French and Americans to 
reach their goal first — the German railway at Sedan. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 277 

The American divisions that were now engaged were 
the Seventy-seventh, Seventy-eighth, Eigtieth, Second, 
and Eighty-ninth, besides some divisions across the 
Meuse. It was the Seventy-seventh division that won 
the goal, and on November 6th it reached the Meuse 
opposite Sedan, commanding the vital German line of 
communications. Adjoining them, the Forty-second, 
the famous Rainbow division, pushed in closer to 
Sedan. The American campaign was over, in the 
most complete success imaginable. Every goal set 
for it had been gained. 

The American victory was decisive. It made 
further German resistance impossible. The defeats 
in Belgium and along the British front were enough 
to insure a complete victory, but the Germans, if they 
chose, could have continued the war through the winter 
along the line of the Meuse, or by continuing their 
slow retreat to the Rhine. But the American victory 
ended all possibility of this. One of the two main 
lines of communications, and the more important one, 
was severed; retreat to Germany by the most direct 
route was blocked, and the Meuse River as a place of 
refuge was not available, since the Americans occu- 
pied it. Nothing remained for the German army but 
to attempt to crowd through the single gateway of 
Liege, which was impossible, in view of the fact that 
a great part of the German army was farther from 
it than the nearest Allied forces — or, to surrender. 

Henceforth Americans will have a greater battle 
than Antietam or Gettysburg to recount. In this 
greatest of American battles three-quarters of a mil- 
lion soldiers fought. First and last, twenty-one divi- 
sions were used, the following being the honor roll : 
First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, of the regular 
army; the Twenty-sixth, Twenty-eighth, Twenty- 
ninth, Thirty-second, Thirty-third, Thirty-fifth, Thirty- 
seventh, Forty-second, of the National Guard; and 
the Seventy-seventh, Seventy-eighth, Seventy-ninth, 



2J& HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

Eightieth, Eighty-ninth, Ninetieth, and Ninety-first, of 
the National Army. Eight of these divisions were in 
battle twice. The Seventy-seventh, the famous New 
York City division, was the only one that began and 
ended the long series of battles. Taken out in October 
for a short rest, it was in each of the big advances, and 
finally reached the Meuse near Sedan. 

Of all the. American divisions, the Second suffered 
the largest number of casualties, nearly twenty-five 
thousand, or a little less than its original number. It 
fought in every American battle except St. Mihiel, and 
in a number of French battles besides. The casual- 
ties of the First division were nearly as great, while 
the Third division, the Twenty-eighth, Pennsylvania, 
the Thirty-second, Michigan and Wisconsin, and the 
Forty-second, Rainbow, divisions, all suffered casual- 
ties in excess of twelve thousand. Of the draft divi- 
sions the Ninetieth, Texas and Oklahoma, and the 
Seventy-seventh, lost the most men. 

The United States casualties were much lighter 
than the country had any reason to hope for, in view 
of the millions killed and wounded of other nations. 
Small Belgium and Serbia suffered more heavily than 
did the American army. The number of Americans 
killed, including those that died of their wounds, was 
thirty-six thousand one hundred and fifty-four, less 
than a third of the Civil Ward dead of the Union army 
alone. The total number of battle casualties was less 
than two hundred and forty thousand.. The Americans 
captured forty- four thousand Germans, or more than 
their own killed, losing about three thousand three 
hundred men in prisoners and missing; fourteen hun- 
dred German guns w r ere taken. About forty Ger- 
man divisions opposed the Americans in the six weeks' 
Argonne-Meuse campaign. 

There were in France at the end of the war, three 
American armies of three corps each, or more than 
one million three hundred thousand combat troops, of 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 279 

which less than a million were in action. Many 
American units — infantry regiments, artillery, bat- 
talions, et cetera — spent long months in training, were 
sent to France to complete their training and had ar- 
rived behind the battle lines within sound of the guns 
when hostilities ceased and their opportunity for 
active service was gone. The American second army 
was all set for an offensive in November. Its objec- 
tives were Metz and the Briey iron fields. The latter 
supplied Germany with eighty per cent of her iron ; 
deprived of the source of supply, she could not have 
continued the war. 

The American preparations for continuing the war 
were so tremendous, so overwhelming even in the eyes 
of a nation fostered in militarism, that more than any- 
thing else they broke the will of the German people. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Germany's empire destroyed — her allies 
surrender. 

The influence of Germany's defeats in France was 
nowhere felt more strongly than in the countries of 
her allies. Not one of Germany's co-partners in con- 
quest, half subject though they were, had any real 
interest in German ambitions. The realization of her 
dream of empire would have been as fatal to Hungary 
as to France, as repressive to Bulgaria as to Serbia, 
as blighting to Turkey as to Belgium. 

The alliance of the Central Powers was a compact 
between autocratic rulers, not an association between 
free peoples. In Austria-Hungary the monarch, and 
above all, his centuries-old system of aristocracy was 
the governing force, and their authority had long 
ago been seized by Germany. In Bulgaria, by inheri- 
tance friendly to Russia and England, the Czar Ferdi- 
nand bartered his army and nation for his own pro- 



28o HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

spective gain. He aspired to the overlordship of the 
Balkans. In this he was only half a tool of Germany. 
He had plans that were not in agreement with Ger- 
many's. In Turkey a small ring of powerful leaders 
had usurped authority; in 1914 they decided that Ger- 
many would win the war, and cast their lot with the 
Teutonic Empire, with an eye for booty only. 

Having bound themselves to Germany's chariot, 
they had to stand or fall with her as the war contin- 
ued. German control became more and more abso- 
lute, as each military aid and each shipment of muni- 
tions deepened their obligation, a debt Germany was 
careful to secure. But when German armies began 
to meet defeat, and the German lines everywhere fell 
back, all feeling of loyalty, and nearly all semblance of 
it, vanished, and each country decided to look out for 
its own interests. 

The Allied campaign against the Central Powers had 
now continued for four years, and, except in the case 
of Turkey's outlying possessions, had been fruitless. 
Italian lines in the summer of 1918 were far back of 
the positions of 1915; the campaigns against Bulgaria 
had made no progress in nearly three years. Only 
against Turkey's far-flung outposts was there any 
success. This lack of success, however, was only 
geographical. In reality it was a contest of endur- 
ance, and Turkey, Bulgaria, and Austria-Hungary 
were losing even while their armies stood or advanced. 
The effect of the strain was great, and determined in 
advance the outcome of the final battles. 

The authority of Marshal Foch was extended, dur- 
ing the summer, over all the Allied armies in Italy, 
the Balkans, Palestine, and elsewhere. As soon as it 
was apparent that he had wrested the initiative from 
the Germans, Foch arranged for offensive operations 
upon all fronts to begin at appointed times. 

The attacks on the Salonica front and in Palestine 
began almost simultaneously. On September 15th 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 28l 

the Allied army in the Balkans, commanded by the 
French general D'Esperey, assailed the enemy. The 
opposing army was composed largely of Bulgarians, 
with many Austrians and a few Germans. The attack 
was in the center of the battle line, or from Lake 
Doiran westward beyond Monastir. The British and 
Greek troops fought on the right, the Serbs and 
French in the center, and a considerable Italian force 
assailed the Austrians in Albania in order to prevent 
reserves being sent to aid Bulgaria. 

The Allies were successful from the start. The 
first day an advance of five miles was made, which 
in three days was increased to ten miles. Forty-five 
villages were taken. The assault was pressed hard; 
on September 21st the Serbs advanced nine miles 
through the center of the line. The Bulgarians were 
now in a perilous position. The advance in the center 
was cutting their army in two; two days later this 
actually occurred, when the Serbs captured Prilep, 
and pushed between the first and second Bulgarian 
armies. This in itself was decisive. The army on 
the west could not retreat to safety, and its capture or 
destruction was inevitable. 

The moment the Allied success was of serious pro- 
portions, King Ferdinand called upon Germany and 
Austria for aid, which was promised. But neither 
Germany nor Austria could send aid, although news 
"escaped" of a large German force being rushed to 
the Balkans. In 19 16, or 19 17, such an event would 
have actually occurred, but that time was now past. 
And when it was seen that no help was coming from 
Germany, the Bulgarian people arose en masse and 
demanded that the government make peace with the 
Allies. Accordingly, on September 27th, the French 
commander received a request for a meeting to con- 
clude an armistice. The envoys were received on 
September 28th; the armistice was signed on the 29th, 
and submitted to the Entente governments. Approval 



282 - HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

was given and hostilities ceased at noon on Septem- 
ber 30th. Bulgaria surrendered to the mercies of the 
Allied governments. 

The terms of the armistice, which were strictly mili- 
tary, provided for the evacuation by Bulgaria of all 
Greek, Serbian, and Roumanian territory; for the 
demobilization of the army, and the surrender of all 
munitions. The Allies were to be allowed free pas- 
sage through Bulgaria in their campaigning. 

Coming as it did hard upon the heels of Foch's 
first victories in France, the elimination of Bulgaria 
was hailed as a mighty triumph and as a forerunner 
of the defeat of the remaining enemies. The impor- 
tance of Bulgaria's surrender is seen in the map. It 
was the link between Germany and her empire beyond 
the Golden Horn. The breaking of the link cut Ger- 
many off from Turkey. The mighty German Empire 
which, in September, extended from the North Sea 
to the plains of Asia, ended, in October, at the Dan- 
ube River in Central Europe. More than two thou- 
sand miles of empire were conquered, actually or pro* 
spectively, at a single blow. 

The Allies were now free to begin an attack against 
either Austria-Hungary or Turkey. Such an attack 
coming from new vantage points could not fail of 
success. The mere threat was enough to cause an 
enemy collapse. The Serbs had penetrated to Uskub 
by the time of the armistice. They were now well 
within their own country again, advancing through 
the land that, in 191 5, they had been compelled under 
such bitter conditions to leave. On October 13th 
they reached Nish, their war-time headquarters, and 
before the Austrian armistice they had recovered their 
capital, Belgrade. Serbia, too, was redeemed. 

In Palestine, General Allenby had made no great 
advance since his capture of Jerusalem the previous 
December. He was at first compelled to defend the 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 283 

Holy City from Turkish attacks in force, but early 
in the year he pushed forward, going first to the River 
Jordan and capturing Jericho. 

He had plans almost completed for an offensive 
campaign when nearly all his English troops were 
withdrawn to help stem the German flood in France. 
This made reorganization and new preparations nec- 
essary. In the autumn he was once more ready. 

In September the British had reached a line about 
halfway between Jerusalem and Samaria. Across 
the very heart of Biblical Palestine their lines ex- 
tended, east and west of Jordan. On the right, east 
of Jordan, an army of Arabs aided the British. Fac- 
ing the British was a Turkish army of one hundred 
thousand, well munitioned, well officered. General 
Allenby planned the utter defeat of this army. 

His preparations were vast; the greatest pains were 
taken to have every unit ready, every contingency 
provided for. In spite of their lines being stretched 
across an open country — the barren land foretold by 
the prophets of Israel — General Allenby and his staff 
determined to make a surprise attack. Troops were 
moved only by night, were kept concealed by day in 
orange and olive groves. The machinery of attack, 
tanks, aeroplanes, motor transport, and artillery, were 
brought up by easy stages. Mounts for a large cav- 
alry force were provided. British aeroplanes kept the 
enemy from observation of the area back of the lines. 

The attack began on September 18th; the entire 
line was assailed, with success everywhere except near 
the Jordan. By the 19th a sixteen-mile break was 
opened in the Turkish line between the Jordan and 
the Mediterranean Sea. And now was seen the vital 
part of General Allenby's preparations. In a war in 
which cavalry was hardly ever seen, he had provided 
a large cavalry force. If only infantry had been 
available, the Turkish army could have retreated from 
one position to another, as occurred in other battle- 



284 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

fields. But into the gap that the infantry had made, 
General Allenby sent his cavalry; Australian light 
horse and Indian horsemen. The latter were in their 
native costume, bizarre elsewhere, but fitting as a 
part of an Oriental scene. Over the plains of Sharon, 
beloved by the Psalmist, over the battlefield of Es- 
draelon of Old Testament history, past Mount Car- 
mel, that has looked down upon the conflicts of ten 
thousand years, went the cavalry in a sixty-mile ad- 
vance, cutting the enemy's line of retreat. By Sep- 
tember 22d the Turkish army had virtually ceased to 
exist, was only a mob of panic-stricken men. 

British aeroplanes aided greatly in turning the de- 
feat into a disorganized rout. Observing the main 
line of retreat filled with Turkish troops marching in 
good order, they swooped down within two hundred 
feet of the ground, and with bombs directed especially 
upon the guns and vehicles, they scattered the enemy, 
sending the men into the hills. More than seventy 
thousand prisoners were eventually gathered in, which, 
with the Turkish casualties, accounted for the entire 
army. There was never a more sweeping victory. 
It was a triumph "without a morrow." When the 
battle was over there was no more enemy. 

This battle virtually ended Turkish resistance. 
There was no other large Turkish army in existence 
except the remnant of the force that was being 
pushed gack in Mesopotamia. On September 23d 
Nazareth, which, as the earthly home of Christ, is the 
most famous town in Palestine, next to Jerusalem and 
Bethlehem, was captured. The tiny Sea of Galilee 
was cleared of Turkish stragglers, and the army pressed 
northward as* rapidly as possible. On October 1st 
Damascus, one hundred and eighty miles north, was 
captured. Allenby's objective was now the city of 
Aleppo, which is near the extreme northeast corner 
of the Mediterranean. The Bagdad railway runs 
through Aleppo, and once the lines were broken the 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 285 

Turks in Mesopotamia would be cut off from aid. 
Allenby took Aleppo on October 26th, the second of 
the Allied commanders to reach his final objective 
Before this Turkey had asked for an armistice, and 
on October 31st a pact was signed that marked the 
exit of Turkey, from the war, and signaled the dis- 
appearance of the Turkish Empire as a political power. 

The terms imposed on Turkey were : the opening of 
the Dardanelles and Bosphorus with the surrender of 
all fortifications along the straits; the demobilization 
of the army and the surrender of all naval vessels; 
withdrawal from Persia and the Caucasus, with con- 
ditions governing Armenia and other matters. 

The two arch assassins, Talast and Enver — Nana 
Sahibs on a scale ten thousand time increased — fled 
with such wealth as they could remove. On Novem- 
ber 13th a British and French fleet sailed through the 
Dardanelles and anchored off Constantinople. What 
Sir Ian Hamilton had failed to accomplish at Gal- 
lipoli in 19 1 5, Sir Edmund H. H. Allenby performed 
in Palestine in 191 8. 

A very multitude of blows, any one of which would 
have been fatal, were thus being delivered to the Ger- 
man Empire. The surrender of Bulgaria would have 
meant the submission of Austria-Hungary and Tur- 
key, had that not been otherwise accomplished. The 
defeat of Turkey would likewise have assured the 
downfall of Bulgaria. The collective potency of these 
blows would have brought Germany to terms, even 
had the armies in France been less victorious. 

Austria-Hungary never recovered from the rough 
handling her armies received in 1916 at the hands of 
the Russians. It was more and more necessary for 
Germany to control Austrian military affairs, if the 
strength of the Dual Kingdom were to be used on 
Germany's behalf. The Austrian army was put under 
the control of the German general staff, and German 



286 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

officers w r ere assigned to each Austrian unit, often be- 
coming the real commanders. The heavy blow dealt 
Italy at Caporetto in the autumn of 191 7 was of Ger- 
man planning and direction. 

The collapse of Russia had relieved Austria even 
as it had relieved Germany. The majority of the 
troops were removed from the Russian front, some 
of them being incorporated into German armies in 
France, but most of them being sent to the Italian 
front. There they underwent reorganization, and 
during long months were prepared for a new offen- 
sive upon Italy. 

This was to be Austria's greatest offensive. For 
the first time, the entire ^strength and resources of the 
Austrian army and nation were to be used against 
Italy. It was thought that another attack on a grand 
scale would be productive of even greater success than 
that of the previous autumn. Germany's forty-mile 
advances in France, breaking the deadlock, inspired 
the Austrian commanders to emulation.- Practically 
all German troops had been withdrawn ; the attack 
rested on Austria alone. 

The Italian lines were in the same general positions 
they occupied after the great retreat. In the early 
months of 1918 the Italians made a local attack here 
and there that were designed to improve their posi- 
tions. They w r ere made with the knowledge that a 
last gigantic Austrian offensive was coming. The 
Italian right wing was behind the Piave River, the 
center was on the Asiago plateau.- It was along this 
front that the Austrians planned to attack. Their 
objectives were two: the attack along the lower Piave 
was aimed at Venice. The Austrian soldiers were 
to pause the first day at Treviso; the second day 
Venice itself was to be in their hands. The other 
objective was the important city of Verona, toward 
which the armies in the mountains were to march. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 287 

This accomplished, the Italian army would be broken, 
and all Italy open to the invader. 

The great assault was begun on June 15th, on a 
front of nearly one hundred miles. With a last appeal 
to their loyalty to the empire, with a reminder that 
in the Venetian plain and in the provinces of Italy 
was immense plunder, the Austro-Hungarian soldiers 
were sent upon their last offensive. 

Now came days of terrific fighting. The Italians 
realized that they must stand, if the battle were to 
end successfully for them. A break anywhere along 
the line would be almost fatal. The entire nation 
waited in the utmost anxiety while the soldiers fought 
for their homes and for the national welfare. And 
never was Italian bravery more effective. The Aus- 
trians did not win a third of their day's objectives 
at any point, and along many miles they were held 
in their own trenches. This was true especially in the 
mountains of the Asiago. Here the lines were at the 
edge of the mountain region ; the Austrians from their 
height could look down upon the flourishing plains of 
northern Italy, only a few miles away. A short ad- 
vance here would take them into open country. But 
they were not able to win that short space. The 
Italians, aided by a French division, held firmly, and 
although their foe sacrificed thousands of men it was 
in vain. Only at one point, Montello, where the Piave 
reaches the plains, did the Austrians make any ad- 
vance along the mountains, and even there they were 
held after a short gain. 

Meanwhile on the lower Piave River the Austri- 
ans were meeting with more success. Despite the 
difficulty in crossing a stream in the face of the enemy, 
they were able to cross at several points. Pontoon 
bridges were brought up all ready to put into place, 
and although many were destroyed, some remained. 
The Austrians had foreseen the danger of having 
bridges destroyed, and created great clouds of smoke, 



288 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

shielding the pontoons from the aviators. The Ital- 
ian airmen, assisted by British and French aviators, 
performed feats of the greatest daring to locate the 
bridges, many of them meeting death as they flew 
low above the lines. 

By June 19th the advance was stopped; the Aus- 
trians had forced a number of divisions across the 
Piave, but had been unable to enlarge their gains, and 
were met everywhere with the firmest resistance. The 
Italian army and people, and the whole Entente, 
breathed freely again. It had been feared that such 
a powerful attack could not be held without consider- 
able enemy gains, and Venice and other cities were 
so close to the battle lines that only a few miles' ad- 
vance would see them engulfed. But Venice was 
saved, and the rich country of northern Italy was 
preserved from the ravagers. 

On June 20th, and for some days following, a new 
element entered into the situation. The weather, 
which the year before had aided the Austro-German 
armies, now favored the Italians. A great flood swept 
down the Piave, destroying the pontoon bridges. 
Many hundreds of Austrians were drowned, and the 
turbid waters carried out to sea a great mass of debris : 
bodies of soldiers, supplies of all kinds, dead animals 
— the wreckage of an army. The Italians now pressed 
hard upon the Austrians across the river, driving them 
to the farther shore and capturing thousands of pris- 
oners. At the delta of the river the Austrians had 
established themselves on all the islands during their 
offensive the previous autumn. In the soft, wet ground 
trenches could not be dug. and the Austrians defended 
themselves in small groups under cover of any shelter 
they could find. The fighting here was hand to hand, 
lasting through many days. But the enemy was com- 
pelled to withdraw, endangered by the flood and har- 
assed by the Italians. 

By June 25th the Italians had driven the enemy 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 289 

across the river everywhere except at the delta, where 
the struggle continued for ten more days. This put 
the stamp of unmistakable failure upon the Austrian 
offensive, a failure so great that in the succeeding days 
of the battle it was the Italians that attacked and the 
Austrians that were on the defensive. The battle as 
a whole is remarkable for the fact that the Italians, 
who were assailed by a million strong, gained more 
ground than the Austrians, who were on the offensive ; 
the defenders took half as many prisoners as they 
lost, an unheard-of feature in an offensive action. 
It was with utter despair that the Austrian leaders 
saw their great offensive wrecked. There was not the 
faintest hope that their army could undertake a new 
offensive. It was now only a question of time until 
the end of the war, as far as Austria-Hungary was 
concerned. The Austrian army was thereafter very 
much disposed to allow the war to be decided in 
France and to abide by the result, be it what it might. 

The want of action during the following months 
seemed to prove that the Italians were like minded; 
especially when the months of Allied victory, August, 
September, and half of October, were gone without 
seeing the Italian army undertake more than local 
attacks. The world was not disposed to be critical, 
considering that Italy had done her share in hold- 
ing the lines. But the Italians were under Foclrs 
command, and were ready when he called on them, 
which was in the latter part of October. 

Sixty-three Austro-Hungarian divisions were now 
confronted by fifty-one Italian divisions, three British, 
two French, one Czecho-Slovak division, and one 
American regiment, the three hundred and thirty- 
second. The final battle of the war in the Italian 
theater of conflict began on October 24th, exactly a 
year after the disaster at Caporetto. The Italians 
and their allies assailed the foe along the entire line 
from Asiago to the sea. The attack was centered and 



2C)0 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

the strongest efforts were made in the Mount Grappa 
region, where plains and mountains meet. 

The attacks the first day gained ground, but there 
were no sensational developments, only three thousand 
prisoners being taken. The Austrians began to re- 
treat from certain positions at once, and during the 
following five days the fighting was one of successive 
positions. By the 28th the Italians were across the 
Piave almost everywhere. Less than twenty-five 
thousand prisoners had been taken up to this time. 

It was along the edge of the mountains that the 
greatest success was won, and each day added to it, 
as the Italians captured one position after another. 
By the last day of October the Austrian resistance 
in this region broke down entirely, gaps opened in the 
line, and a single Italian corps, by a rapid advance, 
and a daring attack, interposed between the enemy 
armies on the plains and those in the mountains, cut- 
ting the line beyond repair. 

From now on the battle became a contest in speed, 
as the Austrian army fled. Each day saw the enemy 
more and more disorganized, many units losing all 
will to fight, asking only to surrender themselves. 
The Italians swept on over the territory they had lost 
the previous year, retaking Udine, their former head- 
quarters. One hundred thousand prisoners fell into 
Italian hands in the next three days, and such was the 
predicament of the enemy that the entire Austrian 
army was as good as captured. They did not even 
destroy their munitions, hundreds of millions of dol- 
lars worth of supplies being abandoned. 

The Austrian government had been endeavoring for 
months to gain peace, sending notes repeatedly to 
America and elsewhere. But under the pressure of 
this disaster they decided that an immediate armistice 
was imperative. On October 31st they applied for 
terms, thus causing great consternation in Germany, 
where the real condition of affairs was kept from the 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 29 1 

people. The Allies presented their terms, they were 
accepted, and on November 3d, as the victorious Ital- 
ians entered Trent and Trieste, their objectives for 
more than three years, the war ended for Italy and 
Austria. 

The terms were equivalent to complete surrender. 
They provided for the cession of all territory claimed 
by Italy, the withdrawal and demobilization of the 
Austrian armies, including any forces in France. To 
the Allies was reserved the right to march through 
Austro-Hungarian territory. Practically all naval 
craft — submarines, battleships, et cetera — were to be 
surrendered. 

For Austria-Hungary it was not only the end of 
the war, but also the end of the empire. The long 
threatened revolt of the many races within its borders 
began even while the government was debating 
whether to continue war beside Germany, or to seek 
peace from the Entente. The desperate, war weary, 
hungry people arose everywhere, and the imperial 
authority was brought to an end. Hungary declared 
herself independent. The German parts of Austria 
did likewise, proclaiming their intention of associating 
themselves with Germany. The ancient people of 
Bohemia, an independent nation centuries ago, but 
since submerged under Austrian rule, declared them- 
selves a free country and people. The southern Slavs 
arose in turn, to form a new nation founded on racial 
ties. 

The Austrian Empire had endured more than eleven 
hundred years. Founded in the Middle Ages as the 
Holy Roman Empire, it exercised sway over half of 
Europe in the days of its greatness. Nearly all 
of Central Europe was embraced in its borders — all 
of Holland, including what is now Belgium, parts of 
France and Germany, half of Italy, were misgoverned 
from Vienna. In the person of the emperor — King 
Charles the Fifth of Austria and Spain — the newly dis- 



292 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

covered domain in America was an appendage of the 
ancient empire. But its days had long been numbered, 
and now were brought to an end. The scepter, which 
in the hands of earlier Karls, was potent in a score of 
countries and brought peace or war to a score of 
peoples, was, in the hands of the new Karl, powerless 
to rule even Vienna. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

FINAL VICTORY. 

The earlier German defeats of 191 8, those result- 
ing in the destruction of the four salients of the Lys, 
Picardy, the Marne, and St. Mihiel, with the attend- 
ant losses in men and material, were to the German 
government a warning to seek peace at once. The 
subsequent battles added forcibly to the necessity of 
getting terms. But the German government was 
fatally handicapped; it could not hope for reasonable 
terms, or terms which would be reasonable between 
mutually respecting nations. By its own acts it had 
cut away the ground upon which it and the Entente 
nations might come to an understanding. There re- 
mained only to seek peace, yet retaining such advan- 
tages as were possible. 

It was well understood since the entry of the 
United States into the war that the Allies would not 
make a peace treaty with the Kaiser's government. 
The powers in Germany therefore prepared a program 
intended for the eyes of the enemy. A change in the 
basic foundation of government took place visibly, and 
on September 30th a new chancellor, Prince Maxi- 
milian, came to the head of affairs. He was made 
responsible, not to the Kaiser,, but to the Reichstag. 
Plans for a general representative government were 
hurried. The power of the military authorities, and 
especially the exclusive war-making power of the 
Kaiser, was curtailed. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 293 

This was preparatory to a direct request for peace. 
On October 5th the world was startled beyond meas- 
ure by a note from the German Chancellor to Presi- 
dent Wilson, asking that an immediate armistice be 
granted. He professed to< accept, as a basis of peace, 
the fourteen points and other pronouncements of Mr. 
Wilson's. It was significant that the universal feeling 
in America and elsewhere was one of distrust. It 
seemed incredible that Germany was sincere in her 
newly professed democracy. The demand in all 
countries was for rejection of the peace offer. 

On October 8th the President replied to the Ger- 
man note, asking if the German government accepted 
the conditions of peace as outlined by himself. He 
said that the first condition, as a proof of good faith, 
was the immediate withdrawal of the German army 
from Entente countries. The most pertinent part of 
his note was that which asked the Chancellor if he 
represented merely the imperial authorities. 

Four days later the German foreign secretary an- 
swered these questions, reaffirming the desire for 
peace, and stating that the power of government now 
rested with the German people. It was then that 
the President made his real answer to the German 
peace proposal. In a communication of October 14th, 
he declared that an armistice must provide for the 
absolute military supremacy of the United States and 
the Allies. He charged the Germans with insincerity, 
pointing to inhuman acts and wanton destruction even 
then being perpetrated on land and sea. He called 
for the abolition of every "arbitrary power that could 
separately, secretly and of its single choice, disturb 
the peace of the world," saying that the Kaiser's 
government was of that nature. 

This uncompromising reply brought forth approval 
from every Allied country. To have thus asserted the 
first principle of democracy in the face of the world's 
greatest autocracy was an event in history. But it 



294 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

was hard for the people of the war-ridden nations to 
believe that the end was near. Years of German 
savagery left them with the settled opinion that no 
good thing, not even a good word, could come out of 
Germany. They were united in desiring that their 
armies be allowed to destroy the German military 
power. 

The Allied armies were fast closing in on the enemy. 
In a previous chapter their progress was narrated up 
to about October 20th. At that period the Americans 
alone were still meeting with strong resistance. In 
Belgium and most of France, the Allied advance had 
overcome the enemy strongholds, and the armies went 
forward steadily. The Germans left machine guns 
to fight rear-guard actions, also making a stand at 
certain strategic towns, as at Valenciennes, in order 
to give their main armies time to withdraw. All 
along the line the Allied armies were crossing from 
France to Belgium, in an advance from the west and 
south. The German retreat was conducted skillfully. 
During the last week in October the British were 
closing in on Valenciennes, meeting with sharp resist- 
ance, protected as the city was by the Scheldt River. 
It was not until November 2d that the Canadians 
captured the city. 

The French armies of Debeney, Mangin, and Berth- 
elot had the greatest distance to traverse in order to 
reach the frontier. Their objectives were Maubeuge, 
Hirson, Mezieres, and other important towns and for- 
tresses along the frontier. On October 25th the 
French broke through the last organized line, and 
thereafter made rapid advances toward their goals. 
They did not permit the Germans to rest anywhere, 
and gave them no opportunity to form a new line of 
resistance. 

Scores of Belgian and French towns were being 
rescued each day. They had been imprisoned for 
years inside the German wall of blood and iron. 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 295 

Some of these towns were in ruins, from which half- 
starved survivors emerged as their oppressors de- 
parted. Other places were left intact, indicating that 
the Germans intended to remain there for years to 
come. The Germans had prepared to destroy Bruges 
and the Belgian and French cities, when President 
Wilson's note concerning such destruction impelled 
them to change their policy overnight. Bruges was 
left unharmed. The destruction was widespread and 
complete to desolation as it was. Factories and every 
kind of manufacturing and commercial facilities were 
burned, broken, or otherwise destroyed. Homes were 
burned, or pillaged, works of art stolen, or destroyed. 
Not since the days of the Spanish Inquisition had Bel- 
gium suffered such cruelty and indignity. 

If the Germans had any hesitation about complying 
with the Allied demands, any hope that complete sur- 
render could be averted, their doubts were settled by 
the rebellion of German sailors. Early in November 
the naval authorities decided upon a last desperate 
sortie of the entire German navy, realizing that the 
only result would be that the ships would go down 
with colors flying. Orders were issued to all the ships 
of the fleet to prepare for action. But the German 
sailors had no mind to be sacrificed to uphold the honor 
of the dying empire. The crew of one battleship 
mutinied, seized control of the vessel and raised the 
fed flag. The fleet admiral surrounded the rebellious 
ship, and gave notice to the mutineers that they had a 
certain time in which to submit. German sailors were 
confronted with the necessity of killing their com- 
rades; gunners waited for the orders that would sink 
one of their own ships. Before the hours of grace 
elapsed, however, the mutiny spread to the whole 
fleet. The men took possession of all the warships, 
overthrew the authority of officers, many of whom 
fled. The Kaiser's brother, Prince Henry, was among 
those that departed in haste. The rebellion spread to 



/ 
2g6 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

Hamburg, Bremen, and other cities, signaling the last 
hour of the German Empire. 

With the ground crumbling under them the Ger- 
man autocracy hastened to conclude an armistice. 
The voice of the people now demanded that the war 
be brought to an end. There were threats against the 
war lords, no longer whispered, but shouted aloud. 

A third note between the German government and 
President Wilson had been written and answered; the 
Germans outlining their steps toward democracy, and 
declaring that orders had been issued forbidding the 
destruction of any but military objects, and forbidding 
the sinking of merchant vessels. The President re- 
iterated the grounds of distrust of German intentions, 
ending by saying that surrender, not negotiations, 
must be a prelude to peace as long as the autocracy 
retained any degree of power. General Ludendorff's 
resignation was announced immediately afterward. 
He was considered to have been the virtual director 
of Germany during the last year. On October 27th 
the German government sent a brief note to America 
saying they awaited negotiations along the lines of the 
terms outlined. 

Representatives of the Allied powers and the United 
States now met to formulate the terms of an armis- 
tice; and having agreed upon it, the President, in a 
final note of November 5th, informed the German 
government that the terms were in the hands of Mar- 
shal Foch, and that they should apply to him. This 
they did at once, and on the following day German 
delegates appeared at the battle front, were permitted 
to pass, and were escorted to the Allied commander in 
chief, who read to them the terms to which they must 
submit. 

As the negotiations proceeded, the Allied armies did 
likewise, their progress during the closing days of the 
war promising to turn the German retreat into a rout, 
with wholesale captures. But instead of a final 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 297 

tremendous Armageddon with the German standards 
falling in a last vortex of battle, the war was ending 
almost tamely, as the Germans retreated everywhere. 
On November nth, the last day of the war, the Brit- 
ish entered the town of Mons in southern Belgium. 
It was at Mons that the British army entered the 
V Great War. Compelled to retreat from the town in 
August, 1914, they promised themselves to return 
some day. Only a few of the original army were 
left to return, but their comrades carried out their 
promise. Belgians, British, French and Americans, 
all were advancing toward Germany on November 
nth, with only a breaking army to oppose them. 

In Germany all interest centered in the Kaiser, as 
the chief obstacle to peace. Each day added to the 
clamor for his dethronement, and each day following 
the sailors' revolt saw republics proclaimed in several 
German States. Finally, on November 9th, the Kaiser 
abdicated, fleeing to Holland the following day, an in- 
glorious ending of one of the most theatrical careers 
of history. 

And on November nth,. in the fifty-second month of 
the great war, hostilities came to an end with the sign- 
ing of the armistice. In a struggle far exceeding that 
of any other conflict in the history of mankind, right 
triumphed over might; autocracy was conquered by 
democracy; potentates fell before champions of the 
people; civilized savagery was crushed by the armies 
of the Christian nations. A war involving millions of 
men was over at last; some of the nations were pros- 
trate, some of the peoples were temporarily deprived 
of reason, all of the countries were terribly wounded, 
all were gasping from exhaustion. 

In this the greatest of all wars, this most stupendous 
of crimes, Germany mobilized about eight million sol- 
diers. Of these, more than five million suffered death 
or wounds. Austria-Hungary called upon four mil- 
lions of its men, with casualties exceeding two million, 



298 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

not including prisoners. Russia armed nearly twelve 
million men. In this most splendid of sacrifices for 
the common welfare of mankind, France and Britain 
each gave five millions of her citizens. 

The losses of the war were terrifying. Not a vil- 
lage, hardly a home, in the warring countries but 
mourned for its dead. Britain's killed, counting the 
casualties of the whole empire, numbered more than 
six hundred and fifty thousand men, with total casual- 
ties of more than three million. Of the dead, nearly 
forty thousand were officers. Canadians to the num- 
ber of four hundred thousand went overseas; sixty 
thousand were killed in action, and more than two 
hundred thousand paid a price for the welfare of the 
world. Australia's losses were similar. New Zealand 
had a unique record ; with casualties numbering a little 
less than sixty thousand, with sixteen thousand five 
hundred dead, only forty-five of her soldiers were 
taken prisoner. 

French losses were heavier even than the British, 
the dead exceeding one million one hundred thousand, 
the total casualties numbering four million seven hun- 
dred and sixty-two thousand eight hundred. Italian 
losses were heavy for the limited battle front. Mobi- 
lizing about five: million soldiers, fully half of them 
were numbered among the killed, wounded, prisoners 
or missing, with half a million dead. Belgium, Serbia, 
and Roumania each lost from two hundred thousand 
to three hundred thousand men. 

But the sorrow of the war was for the moment 
forgotten in a universal outburst of joy. In every 
Allied country, men, women, and children hailed with 
delight the end of the war and the greatness of the 
victory. To have compelled Germany to surrender 
seemed the greatest achievement in history. In San 
Francisco, where people knew little of war, they re- 
joiced equally with Paris, which knew the horrors of 
rt. New York, which saw only live soldiers, was as 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 299 

happy as London, which had suffered death and de- 
struction from the air. The smallest villages of inland 
America celebrated the doom of the piratical sub- 
marine. The terrorized people of the war area of 
France smiled again, and little children first learned 
that they need no longer fear a soldier. In the great- 
est holiday the world has ever known, cheering crowds 
filled the streets of every city in every land, reveling 
in a common joy that knew no frontiers. 

To the soldiers on the battlefields the change from 
warfare to peace came with startling suddenness. At 
one moment they were in the midst of battle, with 
the guns roaring as they had roared for years. Com- 
rades were falling as comrades had fallen during those 
long years. The next moment the noise of battle 
ceased and a quiet, such as northern France had not 
known for fifty-two long months, came upon the fields 
of conflict. To stand in the open at one moment was 
to invite death, to walk across no man's land the next 
moment was merely a breach of discipline. To kill 
an enemy was at one moment a duty, to do so the next 
moment would have been a crime. In the twinkling 
of an eye, five hundred miles of battle front passed 
from war to peace, and men sat on trench parapets 
in no fear from a sniper's bullet. The millions of 
huge shells filled with deadly explosives, which had 
been the very mainstay of freedom and the fiery road 
to victory, had become, in a moment, an expensive 
assembly of useless steel and chemicals. The night 
of November nth was the first of one thousand five 
hundred and thirty-one nights in which the lurid fires 
of battle did not present the semblance of hell and 
the bursting shells make hell a reality. 

The terms of the armistice imposed upon Germany 
were little short of surrender. The very severity of 
them astounded and delighted the world. That Ger- 
many should have accepted such a humiliating peace 



3<X> HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

argued even greater exhaustion than the Allies had 
supposed. 

Germany was ordered to evacuate the invaded lands 
in Belgium, Luxemburg, France, and Alsace-Lorraine. 
Also to yield German territory as far as the Rhine 
to the Allies, subject to the final treaty of peace. The 
Allies were to be permitted to establish bridge heads 
— fortified areas across the river — at important cities 
on the Rhine. The following military supplies were 
to be surrendered: Five thousand cannon, twenty-five 
thousand machine guns, seventeen hundred aeroplanes, 
five thousand locomotives, one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand cars, five thousand motor trucks. 

Prisoners of war were to be released, without reci- 
procity on the part of the Allies. All civilian inhabi- 
tants were to be repatriated. Military supplies not 
removable were to accrue to the Allies, the railway 
systems of the occupied countries were to be left in 
good condition. 

The Germans were to withdraw from the territories 
of their former allies, were to evacuate Russia, sub- 
ject to local conditions as directed by the Entente; 
they were ordered to restore Roumania, and to re- 
nounce the greedy treaties with those two countries. 

It was in naval conditions that the armistice was 
most severe. All submarines of all classes were to 
be surrendered, at a date to be fixed. And not only 
submarines but also many surface warships were to be 
delivered, as follows: Six battle cruisers, ten battle- 
ships, eight light cruisers, and fifty destroyers, all of 
the most modern types. The Allies were to continue 
the existing blockade, while Germany was to remove 
all obstacles to trade in the Baltic, was to assist in 
locating and destroying mines, was to surrender all 
merchant ships belonging to the Allied nations. 

The terms of the armistice were carried out. On 
November 21st occurred an event entirely without a 
parallel in history. On that date the German battle 



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. JjQ* 

fleet surrendered to Admiral Beatty of the British 
navy. 

The German fleet was ordered to proceed to a cer- 
tain place in the North Sea, about sixty miles off the 
coast of Scotland. The British grand fleet, together 
with five American dreadnaughts, was drawn up in a 
double column miles long. Every man was at his 
battle station, prepared for action, in case the Germans 
should attempt treachery. A single British light 
cruiser went forth to meet the oncoming German 
"battle fleet," defenseless except far the potent might 
of Britain, and hoisted the signal "Follow me." 

Led by this small cruiser, the Cardiff, the German 
ships meekly steamed between the lines of British and 
American warships, and proceeded to their appointed 
anchorage. All the plans of war lords, as embodied 
in those mighty machines, were thus brought to a 
humiliating end. The strength of armor and the 
power of guns were of no avail without the daring 
sailors such as John Paul Jones and Horatio Nelson 
commanded. 

No nation in the annals of mankind ever gave up 
so powerful a weapon. The Greeks at Salamis won 
one of the greatest sea battles of history against 
greater odds. The men of Drake and Howard were 
not daunted by the overwhelming strength of the 
Spanish Armada. But the Germans, who for years had 
longed for the "Day" that should see them meet the 
British fleet, found it to be the most degrading of all 
the days of a proud people. 

Twenty submarines were surrendered on November 
20th, another flotilla on the following day, and others 
on succeeding days until one hundred and twenty-nine 
U-boats had been delivered into the keeping of Great 
Britain. The great weapon of murder on the high 
seas thus passed forever from the evil hands of those 
that wielded it. It was the end of a dreadful night- 
mare. No more need ships scurry through the night 



302 HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 

with lights shrouded; no more need passengers and 
crew fear the terrible shock of a torpedo. 

In the eyes of the German people, there was a 
certain triumph in the fact that the war ended with 
their soldiers on enemy soil. To many of the poorer 
class the homecoming of their men was the return of 
victors. It needed the fulfillment of the terms of the 
armistice to convince the Germans that their armies 
had been terribly beaten. 

Immediately after November nth the enemy gath- 
ered up his armies and belongings and started back 
to Germany. As the Germans retreated, the Allies 
advanced. Antwerp was occupied after a week, while 
on November 22d the Belgian King reentered Brus- 
sels, the capital, amidst the wildest joy of the people. 
On November 19th General Petain entered the old and 
new French city of Metz. On the same day he was 
made a Marshal of France, in recognition of his serv- 
ices to France, which were second only to those of 
Foch and Joffre. And to all the redeemed cities came 
the liberating armies — to Strassburg, to Namur, to 
Louvain, and finally to Liege, where the Germans 
started on their terrible career of conquest. 

On past the frontiers of Germany the enemy forces 
retreated, and after them followed the Allied armies. 
The Belgians occupied the northernmost strip of 
Rhineland, the British held the adjoining territory 
with their main position at Cologne. The American 
army of occupation administered three thousand 
square miles of Germany, including the city of Coblenz 
and its bridgehead across the Rhine. The French 
held territory centering in Mayence, besides admin- 
istering all of Alsace-Lorraine. 

The unconquerable Germany was conquered, the 
Rhine that they declared would be defended to the last 
man, was yielded tamely to the enemy. The German 
ambition to rule Europe served only to deluge Europe 
in blood, and finally to bring their most beloved lands 






HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 3O3 

into the hands of the intended victims. All the pomp 
and majesty of the Kaiser were stripped from him, 
all his plans and schemes were brought to nothing. 
The German name had become a thing of reproach, 
their civilization a shame. The democracy of France, 
Britain, and America, enduring to the end, toiling 
through the darkest night of centuries, had now won 
to a new day. 



304 



France's Tribute to First United States Soldiers 
Who Fell in France. 

The following eulogy was a part of the ceremony 
at the burial in northern France, of the first three 
American soldiers who lost their lives. The words 
were spoken by a French officer. He said: "In the 

name of the th division, in the name of the French 

Army, and in the name of France, I bid farewell to 
Private Enright, Private Gresham, and Private Hay 
of the American Army. Of their own free will they 
had left a prosperous and happy country to come over 
here. They knew war was continuing in Europe; 
they knew that the forces, fighting for honor, love of 
justice and civilization, were still checked by the long- 
prepared forces serving the powers of brutal domina- 
tion, oppression and barbarity. They knew that 
efforts were still necessary. They wished to give us 
their generous hearts, and they had not forgotten old 
historical memories, while others forget more recent 
ones. They ignored nothing of the circumstances, and 
nothing had been concealed from them — neither the 
length and hardships of war, nor the violence of battle, 
nor the dreadfulness of new weapons, nor the perfidy 
of the foe. Nothing stopped them. They accepted 
the hard and strenuous life; they crossed the ocean 
at great peril; they took their places at the front by 
our side, and they have fallen facing the foe in a hard 
and desperate hand-to-hand fight. Honor to them. 
Their families, friends, and fellow-citizens will be 
proud when they hear of their deaths. 






HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR. 3O/5 

"Men! These graves, the first to be dug in our 
national soil, and but a short distance from the enemy, 
are as a mark of the mighty land we and our Allies 
firmly cling to in the common task, confirming the 
will of the people and the army of the United States 
to fight with us to a finish, ready to sacrifice as long 
as is necessary until final victory for the most noble 
of causes, that of the liberty of nations, the weak as 
well as the mighty. Thus the deaths of these humble 
soldiers appear to us with extraordinary grandeur. 
We will, therefore, ask that the mortal remains of 
these young men be left here, left with us forever. 
We inscribe on the tombs : 'Here lie the first soldiers 
of the Republic of the United States to fall on the 
soil of France for liberty and justice.' The passerby 
will stop and uncover his head. Travelers and men 
of heart will go out of their way to come here to pay 
their respective tributes. Private Enright, Private 
Gresham, Private Hay! In the name of France I 
thank you. God receive your souls. Farewell !" 



306 

CHRONOLOGY OF THE WAR. 






1914. 

June 28.— Murder of Austrian Grand Duke Francis Ferdinand. 

July 23.— First Austrian demands on Serbia. 

August 1. — Germany declared war on Russia. 

August 3.— Germany declared war on France. 

August 4. — Germany invaded Belgium. Great Britain de- 
clared war on Germany. 

August 5 to -October 12.— Conquest of Belgium. 

August 20. — Brussels captured. 

August 22 and 23. — British and French defeated in Belgium. 

August 27. — Great Russian defeat at Tannenberg. 

September 1. — German advance into France. Russian inva- 
sion of Galicia. 

September 6 to 10. — Battle of the Marne. 

September 15 to 25. — Battle of Aisne. Beginning of dead- 
lock. 

September 22. — Submarine sank three British cruisers. 

October 9. — Antwerp captured. 

October 20 to November 25.— First battle of Ypres (Yser). 
Germans fail to win Channel ports. 

October and November. — Great battles in Poland and Galicia. 

November 5. — England declares war on Turkey. 

November 7. — Japanese capture Tsing Tao, in China. 

December 8. — British win naval victory in South Atlantic. 

December 24. — First air raid on England. 

1915. 

January 25. — British naval victory in North Sea. 

February 2. — Turks attack Suez Canal. 

February 18. — Submarine blockade of British Isles declared. 

February-March. — Allied fleet attack Dardanelles. 

March 22. — Russians capture Przemysl. 

April 22 to May 15.— Second battle of Ypres. 

April 25. — British land at Gallipoli. 

May 2. — Germans break Russian line. Great retreat begun. 

May 7. — "Lusitania" sunk. 



307 

May 13. — Wilson's first "Lusitania" note. 

May 3. — Italy entered war. 

May to August. — Greatest attacks at Gallipoli. 

July to October.— German conquest of Poland and western 
Russia. 

August 6. — Warsaw captured. 

September 25 to 28.— Anglo-French assault at Loos and Vimy 
Ridge. French assault in Champagne. 

October, November, and December. — Austro-German-Bul- 
garian conquest of Serbia and Montenegro. 

October 5. — Anglo-French expedition landed at Salonica. 

December 15.— Sir Douglas Haig appointed commander of 
British. 

1916. 

January 8. — Evacuation of Gallipoli. 

February 21 to December. — Battles of Verdun. 

February 24. — Germans take Fort Douaumont. 

February and March. — Russian victories in Asia Minor. 

April 29. — British force in Mesopotamia surrendered. 

May 16 to June 4. — Austrian offensive in Italy. 

May 31.— Naval battle of Jutland. 

June 4. — Greatest Russian offensive begun. 

June 5. — Lord Kitchener lost at sea. 

July 1. — Anglo-French offensive on Somme begun. 

August to November. — Great Italian offensive. 

August 9. — Italians capture Gorizia. 

August 27. — Italy declares war on Germany. Roumania en- 
tered war. Russian advance checked. 

September 15. — British use first tanks in war. Roumanian 
invasion of Hungary checked. 

September 26. — British take Combles. 

October, November, and December. — Conquest of Roumania. 

November. — New British attack along the Ancre. 

December 6. — Germans capture Bucharest. 

December 7. — Lloyd George becomes premier of England. 

December 12. — Germany proposed peace. 

December 15. — Great French victory at Verdun. 

1917. 

February 1. — Germans began ruthless submarine warfare. 
February ,°>. — United States broke relations with Germany. 
March 11. — British capture Bagdad. 



3 o8 

March 15. — Abdication of Czar. Russian Revolution. 
March 17 to 21. — Germans retreat to Hindenburg Line. 
April and May. — Period of greatest sinkings by submarines. 
April 6. — United States declares war with Germany. 
April 9. — Canadians capture Vimy Ridge. Battle of Arras 

continued April-May. 
April 16. — French assault on Rheims-Soissons front. 
May 4. — American warships in English waters. 
May to September. — Continuous Italian assaults on Isonzo 

front. 
May 15. — General Petain becomes commander of French 

army. 
June 5. — Draft registration in United States. 
June 7. — British take Messines Ridge. 
June 26. — First American soldiers in France. 
July. — Last Russian offensive. Kerensky in power. 
July to November. — British attacks at Ypres. 
September 4. — Germans capture Riga. 

October 24. — Italian defeat at Caporetto. Army broken. 
November and December. — Italians defend line of Piave 

River. 
October 23 to November 1.— French assault on Chemin des 

Dames. 
November 7. — Bolsheviki seize power in Russia. Kerensky 

overthrown. 
November 13. — Clemenceau premier of France. 
November 22. — Victory of British tanks at Cambrai. 
December 7. — United States declared war on Austria-Hun- 
gary. 
December 10. — Jerusalem captured. 

1918. 

January 8.— President Wilson's fourteen points. 

February 9. — Germany made separate peace with Ukraine. 

March 3. — Russians made peace with Germany. 

March 21. — Tremendous German offensive begun. 

March 23. — British lines broken. 

March 24. — Bapaume recaptured b} 7- Germans. 

March 29. — General Foch made Allied Commander in Chief. 

March 29. — Long-distance bombardment of Paris. German 

offensive checked. 
March 30.— Germans held at Vimy Ridge. 



3°9 

April 9. — New German offensive south of Ypres. 

April 10. — British retreat in Ypres region. 

April 12. — Haig orders British to hold till death. 

April 25. — Germans make last attempt to break through 

near Ypres. Capture Mont Kemmel. Renew assault 

near Amiens. British attack submarine bases. 
May to October. — Great American troop movement to 

France. 
May 27. — Third German offensive begun on Aisne front. 
May 29. — Soissons captured, wedge made in French lines. 
May 31. — Germans reach Marne River. 

June 2 to 11. — French and Americans defend road to Paris. 
June 9. — Fourth German offensive begun near Noyon. 
June 11. — French check German assault. American Marines 

in Belleau Wood. 
June 15. — Last Austrian offensive in Italy. 
June 25. — Italy breaks Austrian attack and drives back the 

enemy. 
July 15.— Last German offensive. Attack on both sides of 

Rheims. 
July 17. — Germans suffer great losses, fail to advance. 
July 18. — Foch begins campaign to end war. French and 

Americans attack Marne salient. 
July 20. — Germans driven across Marne. 
July 30. — Germans retreat from salient. 
August 8. — Second Allied offensive. British attack near 

Amiens. 
August 16. — French assault near Noyon. 
August 23. — Foch made Marshal of France. 
August 25. — British advance to old Somme battlefield. 
August 29. — Bapaume and Noyon recaptured. 
August 31. — Germans leave Lys salient. 
September 2. — British break into Drocourt-Queant line. 
September 5.— German retreat on hundred-mile front. 
September 12.— American army takes St. Mihiel salient. 
September 17.— Allied offensive in Balkans begun. Germans 

driven back to Hindenburg line. 
September 19.— British offensive in Palestine. Turkish front 

broken. 
September 23. — Turkish army dispersed. 
September 26.— Americans begin Argonne campaign. Seven 

miles' advance first day. 



3io 

September 28. — Allied assault in Belgium. 

September 30. — Bulgaria surrenders. Damascus captured. 

October 1. — St. Quentin captured. 

October G. — Germany asks for peace. 

October 8. — Final assault on Hindenburg line; British break 

through. 
October 9. — Cambrai captured. Germans retreat. 
October 13. — French take Laon and La Fere. 
October 14. — Allied attack in Belgium wins vital territory. 

Germans begin to evacuate Belgian coast. Wilson's 

reply to German peace offer. 
October 15. — Americans fighting on Kreimhilde line. 
October 17. — Ostend captured. 
October IS. — Belgian coast cleared. 
October 24. — Italy begins last campaign. 
October 30. — Italy breaks Austrian front. 
October 30. — Turkey surrenders. 
November 1. — American army breaks German resistance. 

Rapid advance begun. 
November 2. — British capture Valenciennes. 
November 4. — Austrian surrender and armistice. 
November 5. — President Wilson notified Germany terms are 

formulated. 
November 6. — Americans cut vital German line. 
November 9. — German envoys apply for armistice. Kaiser 

abdicates. 
November 10. — Kaiser's flight to Holland. 
November 11. — Germany accepts armistice terms. 
November 21. — German High Seas Fleet surrendered. 
December 1. — American army entered Germany. 
December 3. — British army entered Germany. 
December 1G.— American army at Coblenz. British army at 

Cologne. 



MILLIONAIRES 

read the S. & S. novels, but we cannot honestly 
say that it is the favorite pastime of millionaires 
as a class. The S. & S. novel depends for its 
success upon the great mass of folk to whom 
ten or fifteen cents represent the limit that they 
may invest in reading matter at one time. 

It would be a mistake to suppose that the 
S. & S. novels are cheap in contents as a con- 
sequence of their low price — nothing of the sort. 
The only discriminating folks are not those with 
heaps of money. That is why the S. & S. novel 
is in greater demand to-day than ever before. 

You ask us to give you a few examples — well, 
here they are: 

In Freedom's Cause G. A. Henty 

Published as No. 227 Medal Library. 
Phil's Rivals Stanley Norris 

No. 480 Medal Library. 
Winning Against Odds Roy Franklin 

No. 561 Medal Library. 
Hazzard of West Point Edmond Lawrence 

No. 763 Medal Library. 

All of these books are interesting to every one 
who reads for recreation. Ten cents the copy, 
and worth it ! 

If the above are ordered from the publishers, 
4C. must be added to the retail price of each copy 
to cover postage. 

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION 

79 Seventh Avenue, , New York City 



m 
m 

m 

M 
H 






We must have it. We really cannot do busi- 
ness without it. If money's worth, cleanliness, 
and quality of interest meet with your approval, 
you are sure to "O. K." the S. & S. novels. 

There are some fifteen hundred titles in print 
in our lines, among which are the famous 
BERTHA CLAY books. There are some 125 
of these in our present list. We give you the 
titles of a few exceptionally interesting ones. 
You won't make any mistake buying one or more 
of these titles in the New Bertha Clay Li- 
brary : 

PRICE 10 CENTS. 

For Life and Love No. 93 

How Will It End? No. 94 

Love's Warfare No. 95 

The Burden of a Secret No. 96 

Griselda No. 97 

A Woman's Witchery No. 98 

An Idea! Love No. 99 

Lady Marchmont's Widowhood. .No. 100 
The Romance of a Young Girl... No. 101 
The Price of a Bride No. 102 

If the above are ordered from the publishers, 
4c. must be added to the retail price of each copy 
to cover postage. 

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION 
79 Seventh Avenue, New York City 



ai!llll!!ll!l!!l!!!l!i!l!!!t!!]!!!l!i™ 

IMON EYI 



Money is good only for what it will buy. It 
is no good if you invest it in trash, and it assumes 
value as the wisdom with which we spend it, in- 
creases. 

The best investment in reading matter that we 
know of, for those who like good, interesting fic- 
tion, are the works of LILLIAN R. DRAYTON, 
published in the NEW EAGLE SERIES at 15c. 
a copy. These are all big books, printed from 
new plates, and compare favorably with cloth- 
bound novels at many times their price. 

Bound by Gratitude No. 889 

Face to Face with Love No. 881 

Her Own True Love No. 1008 

Just an Angel No. 848 

Loved in Error : No. 980 

The Love He Sought No. 780 

Wedded for Wealth No. 898 

What She Lived For No. 994 

When the Heart Sings No. 919 

If the above are ordered from the publishers, 
4c. must be added to the retail price of each copy 
to cover postage. 



STREET & SMITH CORPORATION 
I 79 Seventh Avenue, New York City j 

IllllllllllilllllllilllllM 



SALES OR MERIT? 

It is easy if you're unscrupulous and just looking 
for sales, to find enough foolish people to buy a 

B worthless article — once. In fact, by being just a lit- 
tle dishonest, in addition, you can keep going for 

» quite a while. 



! 



I 



& 



ft 



BUT 



if you are desirous of building upon a firm founda- 
tion and if you give a thought to the future, and 
if you want to be strictly on the level, you have 
got to give "money's worth" every time. 

The reason that the S. & S. books sell so well 
is that we have advertised them very widely as "the 
right books at the right price." After twenty years 
of experience, the reading public have found this 
to be a fact. 

Among the most valuable books that we publish 
are the following volumes of instruction on special 
subjects. In other words, they are handbooks on 
subjects that every one is interested in. 



AT 10 CENTS 
K> TWENTIETH CENTURY HANDBOOKS 

\ No. 4 — Zingara Fortune Teller Gypsy Queen 

No. 6 — Luck's Dream Book Carol Luck 

No. 3 — National Dream Book, 

Mme. Claire Rougemont 
No. 8— Playing Card Fortune Teller, 
;♦ Mme. Claire Rougemont 

No. 1— Sheldon's Letter Writer. ... L. W. Sheldon 
[♦ No. 5 — Heart Talks with the Lovelorn, 

Grace Shirley 
5> No. 7— How to Keep Fit and Healthy, $ 

Mrs. Frank Stephens 
No. 2 — Frank Merriwell's Art of Physical Develop- A 



ment Burt L. Stan dish 

If the above are ordered from the publishers, y 

4c. must be added to the retail price of each copy J 

to cover postage. T 

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION i 

79 Seventh Avenue, New York City A 



What Makes a Superwoman? 

Beauty? No! 

Daintiness? No! 

Wit? No! 

Youth? No! 

Femininity? No! 

Seek the Superwoman 

You will find her in almost every generation, in almost every 
country, in almost every city. She is not a typical adventuress, 
she is not a genius. The reason for her strong power is occult. 
The nameless charm is found as often in homely, clumsy, dull, 
old masculine women as in the reverse of these types. 

What Makes a Superwoman? 

If you think the problem worth while, why not try to solve it 
by reading Albert Payson Terhune's great book, SUPER- 
WOMEN ? From Cleopatra to Lady Hamilton — they are mighty 
interesting characters. Some of them smashed thrones, some 
©f them were content with wholesale heart smashing. You 
will know their secret, or rather their secrets, for seldom did 
two of them follow the same plan of campaign. 

We have prepared a very handsome, special, limited edition 
of the book, worthy of a place on your "best book" shelf. If 
you subscribe to AINSLEE'S MAGAZINE now you can pur- 
chase it for 50c. Send us a money order for $2.50 and receive 
SUPERWOMEN postpaid, and, in addition, over 1900 pages of 
splendid fiction throughout the coming year. AINSLEE'S 
MAGAZINE is the best and smartest purely fiction magazine 
published. You cannot invest $2.50 in reading matter to better 
advantage than by availing yourself of this offer. Send check 
©r money order or, if you remit in cash, do not fail to register 
the envelope. Act now! 



The Ainslee Magazine Company 
79 Seventh Avenue New York City 



[ THE CRIME ] 

y in the Nick Carter stories in S. & S. New Mag- V 

ft net Library is never horrible, never revolting. A 

It is used only to give the detective a chance to 

V show his ability and the malefactor an oppor- V 
ft tunity to match his craft against the brains on ft 

the side of law and order. The tussle which 

V ensues carries you along in breathless interest, un- V 
ft til right finally triumphs and vice is punished. ^ 4 

Of course, these stories are not so cut and 

V dried as this little talk would seem to indicate. V 
ft They are full of novel and startling situations. ft 

You can prove the worth of the Nick Carter 

V stories to your own satisfaction by getting one V 
ft or more of the following : ft 

ft The Crescent Brotherhood No. 991 ft 

The Stolen Pay Train No. 992 t 

ft The Sea Fox No. 993 ft 

Wanted by Two Clients No. 994 

A The Van Alstine Case No. 995 A 

Check No. 777 No. 996 J 

V Partners in Peril No. 997 Y 

I Nick Carter's Clever Protege.... No. 998 J 

j The Sign of the Crossed Knives. .No. 999 t 

ft The Man Who Vanished No. 1000 ft 

ft If the above are ordered from the publishers, ft 

4c. must be added to the retail price of each copy 

A to cover postage. A 

1 : I 

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION 

♦ 79 Seventh Avenue, New York City t 

ft ' _ ^ _ _ y 



IUIIHI!llllliillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll)ll!lllllllUIIIIIIIIIIIUIIIIIilllll!IIIIIUUIH 

. MILLIONS SOLD | 

When an author becomes really popular with f| 
jj the paper-book reading public there is hardly any 
jj limit to the number of his books which may be 
| sold. 

Take the works of MRS. GEORGIE SHEL- § 
1 DON for instance. These appeared in serial jj 
( form in weekly story papers of vast circula- jl 
1 tion, and after they had been published that way, 
1 few people suspected that they could be repub- j§ 
J lished in book form and sold to the tune of mil- 
1 lions. 

We were not satisfied, however, that the single 
§§ publication of this author's work was sufficient j| 
| to fill the demand for it. We began the publica- [§ 
B tion of her stories in paper-book form at 15c. the j 
Jj copy. These sales, in the aggregate, run into the §§ 
g millions, and, best of all, they are still selling big. jj 

You will find all of Mrs. Sheldon's works in the j| 
B New Eagle Series. Here are a few excep- 1 
§ tionally good stories by her that it will really pay 
1 you to read, 

PRICE 15 CENTS. 

Audrey's Recompense No. 99 

Betsey's Transformation No. 399 

1 Brownie's Triumph No. 277 

Churchyard Betrothal No. 351 

Dorothy Arnold's Escape No. 188 

Earle Wayne's Nobility No. 476 

3 Edrie's Legacy No. 12 

Esther, the Fright .No. 407 

1 Faithful Shirley No. Ill 

The Forsaken Bride No. 282 

If the above are ordered from the publishers, 
1 4c. must be added to the retail price of each copy 
jj to cover postage. 

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION 
I 79 Seventh Avenue, New York City 

iiiiiiiniiiiiiiii!! 



! 



AN ANALYSIS 

of public taste in literature shows an overwhelm- 
ing preference for fiction. 

Our mode of living is very complex. The 
average business man and woman and the house- 
wife have a lot to be troubled about these days, 
so that the turning to good fiction as an escape 
from daily cares is perfectly natural. This ex- 
plains in part why the S. & S. novels are so pop- 
ular. The rest of the reason is that they are 
mighty good stories at mighty low prices. 

There isn't a red-blooded man with a few hours 
to spare who will not enjoy reading the stories 
of Buffalo Bill, by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, 
published in the Buffalo Bill Border Stories. 
There are some fifty titles to choose from, and 
your dealer is sure to have a good assortment of 
them to offer you. Here are a few of the titles 
in the series which have recently made their ap- 
pearance : 

PRICE 15 CENTS. 

Buffalo Bill and the Gold King. . . .No. 50 

Buffalo Bill, Deadshot No. 51 

Buffalo Bill's Buckskin Bravoes. . .No. 52 

Buffalo Bill's Big Four No. 53 

Buffalo Bill's One= Armed Pard....No. 54 

If the above are ordered from the publishers, 
4C must be added to the retail price of each copy 
to cover postage. 



STREET & SMITH CORPORATION 
79 Seventh Avenue, New York City J 



imiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim minimi 

Read These 3 Books 



IN THE 



New Southworth Library 



We are sure that you will vote the " EM " 
series as one of the best adventure-love stories 
you have ever read. 

You could not spend thirty cents to better 
advantage if you really want to be entertained 
and interested by what you read. 

No. 3— Em ... 10c 

No. 4— Em's Courtship - 10c 
No. 5— Em's Husband - 10c 

Tell your news dealer to get them for you. 

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION, Publishers 
NEW YORK 

jMlllllllllllllllW 



1 



More Machinery 

That's what we needed to fill the demand for 
the S. & S. novels. You see, we were some- 
what restricted in our output by the War In- 
dustries Board, with whose ruling we gladly com- 
plied for patriotic reasons. While the restric- 
tions were on we used up pretty nearly all of 
our surplus stock so that when we were no longer 
under orders from the Government, we found 
ourselves with a lot of orders and very little 
stock. 

We have just about caught up now, thanks to 
some new machinery we have installed which 
turns out paper-covered books very fast. 

Therefore, you can get a very good assortment 
of the S. & S. novels from your news dealer, in- 
cluding the famous Horatio Alger books, which 
retail at ioc. That boy you know will be mighty 
glad to have you make him a present of one or 
two of the Alger books. Ask your dealer for a 
list of the titles. 

Here are some good ones that we published 
within the past two months : 

PRICE 10 CENTS. 

The Backwoods Boy No. 77 

Tom Temple's Career No. 78 

Ben Bruce No. 79 

The Young Musician No. 80 

The Telegraph Boy No. 81 

If the above are ordered from the publishers, 
4C must be added to the retail price of each copy 
to cover postage. 



STREET & SMITH CORPORATION 
79 Seventh Avenue, New York City 



3CHCDC 



1] 



HOLMES 

is a name that has a great deal of charm for 
every American reader when the words "Mary 
Jane" preface it. 

Mrs. Holmes is a decidedly high-class writer, 
whose works are known throughout the English- 
speaking world. Her novels deal with good, 
wholesome American life, and may be admitted 
in the family circle with perfect confidence. 

The following is a list of Mrs. Holmes' books 
in the NEW EAGLE SERIES that retail at 
15c. per copy — a small sum for such a large 
amount of pleasure : 

"Forrest House," No. 925, and its sequel, "He 
Loved Her Once,'" No. 926. 

"Queenie Hetherton," No. 935, and its sequel, 
"Mightier Than Pride," No. 936. 

"Gretchen," No. 945, and its sequel, "Beauty that 
Faded," No. 946. 

"Marguerite," No. 954, and its sequel, "When Love 
Spurs Onward," 955. 

"Paul Ralston's First Love," No. 964, and its 
sequel, "Where Love's Shadows Lie Deep," No. 965. 

"The Tracy Diamonds," No. 968, and its sequel, 
"She Loved Another," No. 969. 

"The Cromptons," No. 972, and its sequel, "Her 
Husband Was a Scamp," No. 973. 

"The Merivale Banks," No. 975. 

"Doctor Hathern's Daughters," No. 983, and its 
sequel, "The Colonel's Bride," No. 984. 

If the above are ordered from the publishers, 
4c. must be added to the retail price of each copy 
to cover postage. 



a 



STREET & SMITH CORPORATION 
79 Seventh Avenue, New York City 

tt » — » » -nc im zzz: 



,=G 



1 1855-1919 

rjp For sixty-four consecutive years, Street & 
££] Smith have specialized in the publication of clean, 
££) wholesome fiction. During this time we gave 
rj£j the public what it wanted, and as the demand 
rj£j changed, our publications changed with it. 

pr What most American readers want at present 

pr are the S. & S. novels, especially those in the New 

zkz Eagle Series by Emma Garrison Jones, who 

Hr wrote straightaway American love stories of ex- 

pr ceptional interest and vigor. Mrs. Jones' works 

Hr cannot be found in any other line, and for inter- 

~xr est they cannot be excelled at the price — 15c. 

$3 Here are some of the best Jones books : 

jX Against Love's Rules No. 890 

He All Lost but Love No. 868 

MP Her Twentieth Guest No. 860 

C0 His Good Angel No. 786 

qp Just for a Title No. 909 

JL If the above are ordered from the publishers, 
JL 4c. must be added to the retail price of each copy 
JL to cover postage. 

[£| STREET & SMITH CORPORATION 
dp 79 Seventh Avenue, New York City 




N R 

A REQUEST 



mz 



Conditions due to the war have made it very difficult 
for us to keep in print all of the books listed in our 
catalogues. We still have about fifteen hundred differ- 
ent titles that we are in a position to supply. These 
represent the best books in our line. We could not af- 
ford, in the circumstances, to reprint any of the less 
popular works. 

We aim to keep in stock the works of such authors as 
Bertha Clay, Charles Garvice, May Agnes Fleming, 
Nicholas Carter, Mary J. Holmes, Mrs. Harriet Lewis, 
Horatio Alger, and the other famous authors who are 
represented in outline by ten or more titles. There- 
fore, if your dealer cannot supply you with exactly the 
book you want, you are almost sure to find in his stock 
another title by the same author, which you have not 
read. 

It short, we are asking you to take what your dealer 
can supply, rather than to insist upon just what you 
want. You won't lose anything by such substitution, 
because the books by the authors named are very uni- 
form in quality. 

In ordering Street & Smith novels by mail, it is ad- 
visable to make a choice of at least two titles for each 
book wanted, so as to give us an opportunity to substi- 
tute for titles that are now out of print. 



LEAg'19 



STREET & SMITH CORPORATION, 

79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York City. 



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